#haskell is straight up just better

[c-official]

It feels like f# hates me. If you write a function that takes a generic argument tou have to name a variable. Because if you write it as a result of some function composition then it is not a function but instead a variable that holds a function, and variables can not have generic type.

And because Microsoft it is also a part of the dotnet hell.

[tortoisesshells]

do you have any favorite headcanons about Burke you'd wanna share? :3c

I don't think I've gone very far off the beaten path; he's got a well-established past (well. maybe not the last five years.) in-show that works, I think? There's not a lot of gaps that need filling in - this is more like some light embroidery on information that's already in the show? Also - I think he's really interesting as a character that others react to - that forces other characters to adjust, or to reveal something to the audience about themselves in how they react to him - that Joe Haskell, who hates Burke's guts, can still draw a straight line in between what happened with Roger, Burke, and Laura and what's happening with Burke, him, and Carolyn now? Or that he and Vicki are in no small ways mirrors of each other - Vicki representing his past as a poor kid working for the Collinses; Burke representing a bad possible future for her of what happens when the Collinses throw someone under the bus to protect themselves? If that makes sense? But! In order of most-to-least textually supported!

He dropped out in high school: he reminds Bill Malloy that he (Bill) paid him a man's wages working for him when he was just a boy, but later mentions physics class. Given his father abandoned the family when he was nine, and Burke doesn't mention his mother ever (I know there's a cut line of dialogue that says she worked in the cannery, but.), or any siblings, or close relatives, I tend to assume he did it for money? Besides. He's a poor kid from the wrong side of the tracks in Collinsport: he was always going to end up working for the Collinses one way or another. Senior year English wasn't going to change that.

He's not touchy about doing what he had to to survive and get ahead as a teenager, but he's nowhere near as educated as most people he's socializing with now, and that is a sore spot with him - buying and bullying only gets someone so far, I think. He may be richer than the Collinses but it's a little hard to buy respect or belonging outright.

There's cut dialogue (I can't remember which episode, maybe @widowshill does) that implies at least one of the times he ran away from home as a kid was because his mother died - the dialogue itself doesn't quite square with what he says about when his dad walked out on "us", but I buy it in broad strokes - Burke talks mostly fondly about recreational fishing with his father, but even so, his dad beat the hell out of him at least once. On the whole, and I don't think I'm going out on a limb here, I think he had a much better relationship with his mother - while she was alive.

(I think, too, that's backed up by his past good relationship with the Evanses? Maggie says he was always around when she was younger; Sam says he was so used to him being around that if they didn't see him for a few days he'd send Maggie to look for him? The implication being there wasn't much keeping him at home.)

(Which makes the revelation that it was *Sam* whose testimony was the clincher devastating. Absolutely maddening to me that they dropped that in one scene and it never got revisited. but that's not a headcanon.)

Absolutely hilarious to me that apparently everyone but him seems to think that David's his son, not Roger's. I go back and forth on whether I think David is, biologically, his - on the one hand, it makes everything worse for Burke - that he's become an absent father just like his; on the other hand, it makes it a matter of biological determination that he and David get along like a house on fire, and not that Burke's one of the few people who treat David like a person and not The Last Heir To The Collins Line or a whipping boy?

speaking of David: I tend to read what happened ten years ago less as a love triangle and more as he, Roger, and Laura were all involved simultaneously.

Lastly, and strictly because it amuses the hell out of me, not because I think it's remotely likely: as far as I can tell, Burke's never been an amazingly popular first name for men, and certainly didn't crack the top 200 names in the 1920s or 1930s. Either it's a family name - his mother's maiden name, maybe? - or, I argue, his parents were weird about 18th century English political philosophers: his full name is Edmund Burke Devlin, he'll just never admit it. not even Laura or Roger know.

Thank you for the ask! I'm not sure what it is about my brain, but the minute this hit my inbox I suddenly had never thought about Burke at all. ever. head empty.

[dragonoftheunderground]

Hey I'm trying to find some pdfs for queer media archival (mainly because of a certain asshole), but I can't find these few. Could those who are willing help me find downloads for them? List below the cut (kinda long).

If multiple are available from one source, just list by source and provide one link per source (unless it's a pain to search or whatever). Epub is okay but pdf is preferred.

Not Found On OceanOfPDF:

WYND - James Tynion and Michael Dialynas

Homebody - Theo Parish

St. Hell Book 2+ - Lewis Hancox

Rainbow! Volume 1 - Tapas Media

Sunhead - Alex Assan

Hockey Girl Loves Drama Boy - Faith Erin Hicks

The Girl From The Sea - Molly Knox Ostertag

Across a Field of Starlight - Blue Delliquanti

The Pirate and the Porcelain Girl - Emily Riesbeck, Nora J. Barna

King Cheer - Molly Horton Booth, Stephanie Kate Strohm

Snapdragon - Kat Leyh

Witchlight - Jessi Zabarsky

If You'll Have Me – Eunnie

Unfamiliar, Vol. 1 - Haley Newsome

Junior High - Tegan Quin, Sara Quin

Lunar Boy - Jacinta Wibowo, Jessica Wibowo

Grace Needs Space! - Benjamin A. Wilgus, Rii Abrego

Bodyshy - Margot Sounack

Crumbs - Danie Sterling

Queer Heroes Of Myth And Legend – Dan Jones

Queer History A to Z: 100 Years of LGBTQ+ Activism - Robin Stevenson

Middletown - Sarah Moon

Flash Fire - TJ Klune

Heatwave - TJ Klune

Forging Queer Leaders: How The LGBTQIA+ Community Creates Impact From Adversity - Bree Fram, Liz Cavallaro

How Do I Un-remember This: Unfortunately True Stories - Danny Pellegrino

Transitions: A Mother's Journey - Elodie Durand

The Book of Pride: LGBTQ Heroes Who Changed the World - Mason Funk

The Gay Revolution: The Story of the Struggle - Lillian Faderman

Original Plumbing: The Best of Ten Years of Trans Male Culture - Amos Mac, Rocco Kayiatos, Cooper Lee Bombardier

Queer Villains of Myth and Legend: A Revelry of Queer Rogues and Outlaws Through the Ages - Dan Jones

Revolution Is Love: A Year of Black Trans Liberation - Aperture (ISBN-13: 9781597115308)

Gay Lives - Robert Aldrich

The Other Victims: First-Person Stories of Non-Jews Persecuted by the Nazis - Ina R. Friedman

Trans Kids and Teens: Pride, Joy, and Families in Transition - Elijah C. Nealy

My Brother My Sister: Story of a Transformation - Molly Haskell

Private Love, Public School: Gay Teacher Under Fire - Christine A. Yared

Raising LGBTQ Allies: A Parent's Guide to Changing the Messages from the Playground - Chris Tompkins

American Savage: Insights, Slights, and Fights on Faith, Sex, Love, and Politics - Dan Savage

Journey to Same-Sex Parenthood: Firsthand Advice, Tips and Stories from Lesbian and Gay Couples - Eric Rosswood

Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men's Lives - Walt Odets

Out of the Shadows: How London Gay Life Changed for the Better After the Act - Tony Walton

Love and Resistance: Out of the Closet into the Stonewall Era - Jason Baumann, Roxane Gay, Kay Tobin Lahusen, Diana Davies

It Gets Better: Coming Out, Overcoming Bullying, and Creating a Life Worth Living - Dan Savage

Ask a Queer Chick: A Guide to Sex, Love, and Life for Girls Who Dig Girls - Lindsay King-Miller

LGBTQ Stats: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer People by the Numbers - Bennett Singer, David Deschamps

Born This Way: Real Stories of Growing Up Gay - Paul V. Vitagliano

Straight: The Surprisingly Short History Of Heterosexuality - Hanne Blank

In Search of Emma: How We Created Our Family, A Memoir - Armando Lucas Correa

The Queeriodic Table: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Culture - Harriet Dyer

The Queer Bible - Jack Guinness

A Girlhood: Letter to My Transgender Daughter - Carolyn Hays

LGBTQ Family Building: A Guide for Prospective Parents - Abbie E Goldberg

Queer Footprints: A Guide to Uncovering London's Fierce History - Dan Glass

Please Miss: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Penis - Grace E. Lavery

Pride: A Celebration in Quotes - Caitlyn McNeill

How to They/Them: A Visual Guide to Nonbinary Pronouns and the World of Gender Fluidity - Stuart Getty

The Queering of Corporate America: How Big Business Went from LGBTQ Adversary to Ally - Carlos A. Ball

Real Queer America: LGBT Stories from Red States - Samantha Allen

This is a Book for Parents of Gay Kids: A Question & Answer Guide to Everyday Life - Dan Owens-Reid, Dan Owens-Reid, Kristin Russo

Queer Adolescence: Understanding the Lives of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual Youth - Charlie McNabb

Hollywood Pride: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Representation and Perseverance in Film - Alonso Duralde

Not Found On irc.irchighway.net/#ebooks Or OceanOfPDF:

Thieves - Lucie Bryon

Belle Of The Ball - Mari Costa

Stars In Their Eyes - Jessica Walton

[therooftopsofketterdam]

"My know-nothing." Inej repeated in a whisper. It sent a warm, comforting shiver through her, heart leaping the way it had done the day she first laid eyes on her ship. For a major part of her life nothing had belonged to her, not even herself... She'd been sealed away in an indenture, doing other people's biddings first Tante Helene, then Per Haskell, then Kaz had gifted her with freedom, using up the last of his savings to buy off her indenture and then some to get her out of the city in case their plan went south... Then he gave her a ship and her parents.

Kaz Brekker belonged to Ketterdam, the city where he lost his brother, where he chose to put himself back together, but Inej was happy to guard his heart and keep it close to her own.

It was a foreign thought. One Inej hadn't dared to entertain, not even when they beat van Eck, not even when he left his gloves back in the attic of the Slat that day they met in the harbour. Maybe he was hers too. Someone could belong to two places at the same time. Kaz belonged to Ketterdam and she belonged to the world but Inej wanted them to belong to each other too.

His breath tingled against her skin in a shakey exhale, her lips quirked as she retreated just enough to give him space to breathe. Hope ruffled its feathers inside her chest as she met his eyes, they'd warmed to the color of well prepared dark tea so rare in Ketterdam. A warm shiver traveled down her shoulders and arms, raising the hair on her skin as fears dispersed in the way he looked at her, the way he gently tilted his face, eyes darting back down to her lips.

Can I. You are in control. Stop means stop. Inej didn't consider these words possible. She had been so caught up in the way their foreheads pressed together, the way Kaz still felt like home after being away for so long... Shadows snarled and nipped at her back. Her eyes closed, leaning closer to him. She needed him near or all her resolve would melt away. Her memories, her thoughts of Kaz would not get taunted by the horrors she had to endure in the Menagerie. Not again, not ever. Inej wouldn't be able to live with herself.

Her know-nothing.

A moment passed with Inej frozen in place, then the barest nod at his question as she focused on the smell that was so uniquely Kaz as their fingers laced together. She held them close to her chest as if he was becoming her tether to reality. Inej had focussed all of her thoughts to wanting to show him he was cared for, he truly had her close, that she was here and not about to disappear again, drunk on emotion and sensation, now reality was setting in...

Kaz brushed his lips against hers and something else roared to life. No longer a delicate flutter of hope, but something warm and deep and longing that finally stepped into the light after being left in the dark for too long. It silenced the thoughts of the Menagerie, lifted the imaginary shackles that bound her legs. She was no longer a girl, bought and sold, all her firsts stolen away from her. She was no Lynx, no Spider, no Wraith, no Captain, only Inej Ghafa.

She met Kaz half way, leaning into him, dark eyes fluttering shut as electricity danced down her spine. This was better then knives, better then wild giraniums and it was hers.

Bright flashes of memories sparked through Inej's mind: She remembered the first time she fliped onto her hands while traversing the high wire, heart pounding in her chest as her hands scrambled for purchase. The panicing moment between flying and falling and the exhileration of hands catching onto something falimiar, balancing perfectly straight. The smell of wild foxglove flowers that seemed to bloom even in the harshest parts of Ketterdam and the small pot she'd left on Kaz's windowsill on a whim one morning. It still bloomed not far from them. The ink drying on the parchment as she signed her name onto a ravkan contract, Kaz handing her the quill and ink. The way he had looked at her then, as if he still tried to figure her out. A bone handled knife with a straight, silver blade she found resting on the window sill that Inej had claimed as hers only days before, when Kaz left the window open for her. Kaz manipulating a deck of cards, gloves off, trickster hands gripping the deck in an almost loving carress.

When she'd seen him then her heart stuttered to a stop. The sun was out for once, streaming in through the open window and his head dipped back, enjoying the warmth while he kept shuffeling the deck, making cards dance across his fingers, appear and disappear like magic and for a moment he was different. Not the hard lines and sharp edges she'd come to associate with Kaz Brekker, but someone younger, softer, definitley Kaz but not at the same time. A boy, barely older then her. Carefree, with a lazy smile. Inej remembered that foreign and familiar boy, tucked his picture away into the back of her mind. He deserved protection and a second chance. It was proof that beneath all his armour, there was a heart and Inej swore to protect it.

She closed her eyes, turning it back towards the sun, just after emptying out the rest of her breadcrumbs for the black birds perched outside.

You shouldn't make friends with crows Why? They have no manners.

"You still have no manners, Kaz." She whispered against his lips with a smile, then dipped low again, pulling her arm around his neck to pull him gently closer. Just leaving another imprint against his lips, against her heart... one more she could take, Inej told herself, then pulled back, breathing heavy from everything that had transpired, her mind working overtime.

She met his eyes, remembering how hard they had been when she'd left Ketterdam last time and now, this, Kaz, solid and warm and real, right here with her. Inej drank it in, her eyes radiant... then the panic came, the shadows rising as Inej had reached and went past her limit. "I'm sorry." She whispered, then let go of him, her hands shook as fingernails dug into her shoulders, it felt like something was trying to rip open invisible silks Inej no longer wore. The places of skin touching skin felt like they were crawling and ripping her open from the inside out.

Quickly, Inej flattened her hands against the cool wood of the window sill, pulling her legs up.

All of a sudden she needed to be outside, away from the space Kaz had enclosed her in. Her heart broke for the moment they had shared, a moment everything inside her longed to share again, but right now she needed to see the coal grey sky hanging over the city.

Clouds drifting fast into the harbour. It was a quick step onto the flat surface outside the window. Muscle memory found the right places to put her feet as she scrambled backwards, blinking a tear away that drifted down her cheek.

She could best this... she had to best this... she needed to see the sky, she needed Kaz near, she needed her head to stop pounding, she needed to kiss him again, hold him close again, she didn't want to disappear.

The wind outside hit her face as she sat down hard, still leaning against the outside part of Kaz's window. Her breathing went hard. "Kaz?" She asked, her voice laced with something heavy. "Stay close, please."

The left corner of Kaz's lips quirked upward with amusement — know-nothing. He didn't speak any other language than his own, but he'd picked up a word or a phrase here and there. It was impossible not to, when you surrounded yourself with people who were multilingual .... and especially when you loved someone with a different native language than your own. Perhaps someday he would take the time to learn to speak Suli fluently — but for now, picking up bits and pieces was good enough.

❝Your know-nothing," Kaz murmured teasingly. Similarly, it was a silly thing to say, but he'd missed their banter; now with a great deal of foresight, he could see how they'd often been skirting the edges of flirtation, not quite stepping over that line, but they'd come dangerously close many times over the years. Now there was no need to tread so carefully. It felt strange, yet exhilarating — perhaps he liked that idea. Being hers. Kaz had certainly never believed Inej would ever be his, especially given that she'd spent far too much of her life being trapped, being owned against her will. Inej didn't belong to anyone ... but he was more than happy to have her heart, just as she'd had his all these years.

When fear arrives, something is about to happen. Kaz had never asked her about that phrase she used, as she'd only said it within earshot of him once or twice. Dark brows narrowed just slightly, a clear indication of a silent curiosity, an unspoken question. He didn't have to wonder about it for long, however, as his own heart hammered against his rib cage. Tell me to stop. Kaz couldn't have stopped her, even if he'd wanted to. He'd never kissed anyone, nor had anyone ever kissed him and frankly, he had absolutely no idea how. He had instinct, which to him seemed to be the best way to go about it ... probably. He'd seen people kiss within his presence plenty of times and, while at the time he'd wanted nothing more than to evade it at all costs, he supposed it was good that he had some kind of visual aid to go off of.

He followed her lead, tilting his head, leaning in close, eyes fluttering closed. Kaz's breath was shaking, he couldn’t help it — but this time it was merely because he was nervous, excited, perhaps even a little giddy. If this was the feeling that people wouldn't shut up about, the feeling that made them act like fools, that sometimes clouded their judgement ... Kaz supposed could finally understand why. Electricity surged where their lips brushed and a small shiver ran down his back with the realization that Inej had kissed the scar that cut through his lips. It caused a swell of emotion so overwhelming and intense that Kaz almost felt dizzy with it — but he had no idea what half of what he was feeling even was.

It was only a brush of lips and yet his head was spinning, his heart pounding. He opened his eyes, gazing down at her half-lidded — and he saw her uncertainty, recognized it. Inej was trying to gauge whether she'd crossed a line she shouldn't have or not. Kaz shifted the hand still resting against her chest, slowly twining their fingers together, but remaining there all the same, still seeking the anchor of her heartbeat. He wanted to kiss her more firmly, but first ... his eyes briefly dropped to her mouth, then drifted back up to meet her gaze. ❝Inej, I want ...❞ Kaz swallowed thickly, struggling with his words. He settled on something simple, a question they now both understood the meaning of. ❝Can I? ❞

He made no further movement until she offered him a nod, giving him permission. Another shaking breath escaped him and he returned her nod with a faint one of his own — Kaz hesitated, however, feeling as though he needed to say these words out loud, for her. ❝You are in control, Inej,❞ he assured her, speaking with a firm certainty that conveyed experience .... despite the fact that he had none. ❝If you say stop, we stop, no questions asked.❞ He held her gaze, ensuring that she understood. Then ... it was his turn to lean in.

He started with that feather-light brush of lips, little more than grazing, giving Inej the time she needed to prepare herself. Then he gathered every bit of courage he had before he finally pressed his lips to hers. Electricity surged between them more vibrantly this time and suddenly, the world around them seemed to burst with something colorful and bright, something hopeful filling him to the brim in a way he'd never experienced before. The water remained beneath the ground where he'd banished it, the sound and the feeling of her warm breath alone more than grounding him in the moment.

Kaz was meticulous and intense by nature, but Inej drew something buried deep within him up to the surface; something tender and patient, gentle. Suddenly he was simply Kaz Rietveld, experiencing his first kiss with a girl he'd loved for years. A girl who was courageous and brave, who'd insisted on believing in him — whether it was believing that he could become the best version of himself, or believing he would always come for her, save her when she needed it or fight beside her when she didn't. The doubt he'd instilled in her that had taken root when she'd been captured by Van Eck still haunted him, but even despite that ... she'd believed him when he'd finally begun to speak the truth.

Inej had gone through her own hell, horrors he could barely fathom and somehow she'd made her way out fighting, keeping some semblance of faith intact despite everything, managing to balance her beautiful ferocity with her heart-wrenching softness. Kaz Brekker did not worship the Saints, but he would worship Inej in any way she desired it, any way he could manage without a moments hesitation.

The kiss only lasted a moment, but it felt like time had simply slowed to a stop — it felt like a lifetime before he was pulling back just slightly, eyes fluttering open again. Kaz was studying her features, trying to intuit she was okay ... and perhaps a tiny part of him was hoping his inexperience hadn't soiled their first proper kiss.

[sprnklersplashes]

dust off your highest hopes. or, the secret lives of ketterdam’s teachers (part 1)

ao3

Breathe, Wylan he tells himself. He drums his fingers on his thigh and uses the rhythm to pace his breaths: in for eight, out for eight. In for eight, out for eight.

“So our science department is made up of five other teachers,” Mr Haskell continues as they walk down the corridors. Wylan follows Mr Haskell onto a short bridge, framed by glass panels and overlooking the reception where he’d first met with the man. “Two biology specialists, myself and Mr Dirix, two physics specialists and one other chemistry specialist besides you.” Wylan nods, putting on a show of having paid attention. Mr Haskell seems an okay guy, a little set in his ways and by far the oldest science teacher on staff. But so far, he’s been kind and welcoming to Wylan, even as he eyes him now. “Remind me again where you did your placement.”

“Oh, Geldstraat Academy, sir,” he replies.

“Oh, lose the sir, young man,” Haskell says, a warm chuckle lining his words. “I may be your senior, but formalities are dropped when the students aren’t around.” Wylan nods, but he knows it will be easier said than done; the habit predates even his school days. “Geldstraat Academy, you say. That’s a private school, isn’t it? Very high up on the league tables. What made you come to Ketterdam when you could be there?”

“I like to think Ketterdam High chose me,” Wylan answers, a timid smile disguising his thumping heart. In every sense of the word, Geldtraat Academy was the better school; a private school near the country versus not just an inner-city state school, but one so close to the infamous Barrel. And while Ketterdam’s test scores may be steadily rising, the fact remains that Geldstraat outshines them in every way, with a salary to match its enviable reputation. Half the staff here would likely die for that position, and he turned it away with no hesitation and no regrets.

For all Geldstraat’s embellishments, Wylan can breathe in Ketterdam. He can’t put a price on that.

“That’s a lovely attitude to have, Mr Hendricks,” Haskell says. “Ah, here we are.” They take a sharp left at the end of the bridge, and Wylan sees what must be his classroom nestled in the corner. The words turn over in his head, louder now that the door is right in front of him. His classroom. Within the week, his name will be on the placard by the door, and his qualifications written below it. He’ll set up here, with the Hendricks name, and maybe everything else will just fall away.

Mr Haskell opens the door and Wylan follows him in. The classroom is large and bright, thanks to the three wide windows along the side, allowing the sun to spill into every corner. Four rows of desks sit facing the front, wooden tops sitting across steel legs. Beneath the windows are dark wood countertops, running along currently empty shelves and cupboards. The white walls and display boards are empty for now, minuscule holes and faint markings the only hint that someone was here before him.

Wylan gives Haskell a quick nod and sets his box down on the teacher’s desk. His desk, he thinks, a thrill running up his spine. He drums his fingers on the box as he looks around, humming a merry tune under his breath. The walls may be bare and drab now, but he’s come prepared. When he calls this classroom his, he means it in every way he can.

“Luckily, your first lesson is a free one, which should give you time to set up and get settled,” Haskell tells him. “And then you have a Year 7 science class as your first lesson.”

“No problem,” Wylan replies. “I’ve got all my lessons planned out this week.”

“Good man,” Haskell replies. Wylan smiles and sets his satchel down on the chair. He knows, of course, what he’s doing, why Haskell’s compliment has sparked something deep inside of him. He won’t pretend the straightness in his shoulders is accidental. Even if it comes with the echo of a voice he’s trying to forget, lecturing him about posture and first impressions and for goodness’ sake Wylan if you can’t act like a man at least look like one-

Thankfully, Haskell’s booming voice cuts through the ghost in his head.

“Ah, Mr Fahey,” he calls out the door. Wylan sees him waving someone over when he looks up. “Come and meet the new chemistry teacher!”

A stuttered half-protest is all Wylan can get out before Mr Fahey enters, although what exactly he’s protesting he’s not sure. Regardless, Mr Fahey appears in the doorway after a second, and all fussing dies on his lips.

He’s tall, at least a head above Wylan and comfortably above Haskell too. He’s held together by long legs and arms that shouldn’t allow him to move as gracefully as he does, like a dancer from a Golden Age movie. Despite his height, he can’t be more than a year or so older than Wylan. Black curls fall in front of his forehead, artfully swept away from his twinkling dark eyes.

He rolls up the sleeves of his blazer; a blue plaid thing with matching trousers, sitting over a dark green shirt. It looks handsome against his brown skin. Wylan’s first thought is that he doesn’t look like a teacher at all; he looks like he should be on a stage. Or on a runway.

But then he smiles, and two more thoughts come on the heels of that one. The first is that he’s never seen a person with such perfectly shaped lips, ever. The second is more simple; a resounding ‘oh shit’ echoing through his head.

Haskell stands between them and is either delicately ignoring or completely oblivious to Wylan’s swan dive.

“This is Mr Hendricks, our new chemistry teacher,” he says. “Wylan, this is Mr Fahey, our physics teacher.”

“Please,” Mr Fahey scoffs. “I’m not Mr Fahey until 8:20. Before I’m on the clock it’s Jesper.” He extends his hand, long fingers spread out, and Wylan takes it.

“Then I’m not Mr Hendricks yet, I’m just Wylan.”

“Good to meet you, Just Wylan.” Wylan laughs, his cheeks warming as their hands drop away. Jesper’s hand hovers for a moment, the corner of his mouth curling knowingly. “Do I recall correctly, your interview lesson last term was my Year 8 class.”

“You have an amazing memory,” Wylan replies. All he can remember was the sheer panic coursing through him, how it took every ounce of his strength just to keep standing and how every move was meticulously rehearsed. It worked, although Wylan spent weeks waiting for someone to say it was a mistake.

“It was a very memorable lesson,” is Jesper’s reply. Wylan can only pray that his cheeks aren’t changing colour.

“Ah, drat,” Haskell sighs. He holds his phone in his hands and slips his glasses on his face. “Forgot I’m on toilet duty. Uh, Mr Fahey, help him settle in will you?”

“Oh, that’s not-” he begins, but Mr Haskell is already disappearing down the hall. He chuckles weakly as Jesper slides around the desk, a playful smile on his lips. Wylan gives a small, high-pitched hum and runs a hand through his hair.

Breathe he reminds himself. It’s nothing scary, just a person. A very good-looking person.

“It’s all right, really,” he says. “I’m sure you have much better things to do than look after me.”

“Hm, not really,” he replies. “I’ve got fifteen minutes until I have to let my form in, and when I’m not on duty they’re not my problem.” Wylan makes a small, agreeable noise as Jesper slides the lid off his box. A knot begins forming in his stomach, but the soft grin on Jesper’s face almost makes it undo itself. “Classroom decor?”

“A little bit, yeah.” Jesper starts to rummage through the box’s contents while Wylan taps his fingers against the desk. The rhythm is quick, frantic, and definitely not a reflection of how Wylan feels watching a stranger look through his classroom decorations. People have to see them sometime, he reminds himself. Plus, one look at Jesper has him thinking stopping him would be a wasted effort. So he watches with faux calmness as Jesper pulls out a periodic table poster and grins.

“Cool,” he says. “Where do you want this?”

“Oh, I was thinking maybe the back wall there. Or opposite the window, I don’t know.” Jesper hums and turns around, the top corners of the poster pinched between his fingers. Wylan leans forward, pulled like a magnet to its pole, as Jesper turns and faces the back wall. Then, he turns to face the other wall, and Wylan sees his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth as he does so.

He forces himself to exhale. Surely there’s a certain time period before you start getting work crushes?

“Back wall,” Hesper says before setting off, the poster in hand. It takes a minute for Wylan’s brain to catch up and another for him to start stumbling after Jesper, stuttering polite protest after polite protest.

“You-you don’t have to do that,” he says, his cheeks now burning for an entirely different reason. He all but chases Mr Fahey down the classroom. “Really, I can do it myself.”

“Nonsense, it’s the neighbourly thing to do,” he replies smoothly. Wylan then realises he also swiped the Blue-Tac from his desk as well, and he attaches a piece to each corner. He holds the poster just inches from the wall, and Wylan presses his hands together so they don’t shake. “Were you thinking higher, lower, or just here?”

Wylan opens his mouth, another flurry of protests ready, but for once he stops himself. He came to KEtterdam High to shed the skin of his old life, and with the hope that he’d replace the people he once loved. Now he was here, in his classroom, with a rather charming man cheerfully offering to help decorate. And he was trying to send him away? Out of some built-in, extremely well-mannered defence mechanism? How well would that work out for him?

He forces himself to lower his shoulders. He unclasps his hands and shakes out his arms.

You’re not at your father’s school any more, he reminds himself. No one knows him here; it’s precisely why he chose it.

He doesn’t have to be Wylan Van Eck here.

“A little higher,” he says.

Jesper grins and holds it higher, waiting for Wylan’s nod before pressing it to the wall. He limits himself to one thank you and Jesper stands hands-on-hips to admire his handiwork.

“Perfect,” he says. “Just one more touch.” Wylan raises an eyebrow at him, curious now, and Jesper takes a whiteboard pen out of his pocket. “With your blessing, Mr Hendricks?”

“It’s just Wylan,” he says. “And yes. You have my blessing.” Jesper’s smile broadens and he steps up to the poster.

“Not sure there’s anything just about you,” he says. “There.” He stands back with a flourish; a new element Faheyium is now added beneath row five. Wylan laughs at it, but his brain is focussed on what Jesper said just a second ago.

He could choose not to read too much into it. Perhaps he says that to everyone; he certainly seems like the type to. Perhaps there’s nothing in how his eyes rest on him for more than a second, or how his cheeks darken before he turns his head away.

His veins start to hum then, something new coming out of the shadows. Wylan Van Eck would never have let himself get his hopes up about this. But maybe Wylan Hendricks will learn to.

[swanimagines]

(This is @myheartrevealed, by the way) Hi Jenni!! Congrats on 2K, that's so awesome! I would absolutely love a self-ship if you're up for it!

Name and pronouns: I go by Sam and my pronouns are she/her!

Appearance: I have light brown hair and hazel eyes (I like to call them reflective, because they lean more towards blue or green depending on what I'm wearing). I'm 5'5 and I love the dark academia aesthetic, so I wear a lot of neutral colors, sweaters, button downs, Docs, and leggings (which aren't really dark academia, but shhh).

Personality: I'm an INTJ and a ravenclaw. I usually come off as pretty standoff-ish, but it's mostly nerves. I have an anxiety disorder. I normally only have a few very close friends who I feel comfortable speaking vulnerably with or showing physical affection with in any capacity (hugging, holding hands with, resting my head on, etc.). I'm very determined and driven by the desire to spite anyone who thinks I can't accomplish something, usually academically. I hate being in a situation where I'm proven wrong, because I cannot stand the idea of someone thinking I'm dumb or incapable (although I feel that way about myself privately all the time).

Hobbies: Recently, one of my biggest forms of stress relief have been annotating my books. Books I've read a hundred times or books that I'm reading for the first time (once I have a sense for whether I'm going to like them or not). I just love books that have been well loved and I can't help myself from expressing all my thoughts, theories, unnecessary comments, and meme references in the margins. I also love to watercolor, specifically faces. I've been singing since I was a kid, taking part in choir, musicals, and private lessons. Since hitting college, I haven't really performed, but music still means a lot to me and I try to take care of my voice and sing often.

Who I'd like to be shipped with: Kaz Brekker or Jesper Fahey! Which ever one better fits what you want to do story-wise is fine with me!

Type of ship: A drabble would be amazing! But of course, do whatever you feel inspired to do! And I'm a sucker for some hurt/comfort

Thank you so much!!!! Congrats again!

(A reminder for everyone not aware as this has been asked a few times now; these ships were part of my 2k celebration and open only for a selection of people, and it will likely always be that way if I ever do ships again)

I come up with better ideas for Kaz so 😄

ALSO "I hate being in a situation where I'm proven wrong, because I cannot stand the idea of someone thinking I'm dumb or incapable (although I feel that way about myself privately all the time)." ARE YOU ME OMG YOU WORDED IT PERFECTLY, I've had this as a problem for years and I've gotten into a lot of trouble because of it because people think that I hate being wrong because I want to be always right and feel superior to everyone else but I haven't been able to word it before!!! (I have a really hard time to word how I feel, especially when I have to use my words vocally and if someone asks me "how are you", I never know what to answer, but I'll use this as a reference in the future, thank you 💕)

Kaz met Sam when he was fourteen. He had just broken his leg, and Per Haskell had dug up this young healer Grisha girl, no older than Kaz himself, to get his leg healed in return of a pouch of money.

The thing was, they hadn't sought her out sooner, it had been over a week already since he jumped down that roof. Kaz's bones had already started to mend back together and someone who hadn't known anything about medical attention had made the fracture even worse when they had tried to set the leg straight. So she told Haskell that there wasn't really anything she could do anymore apart from preventing a possible infection. Haskell hadn't been happy and threatened to leave her unpaid unless she finds a way to knit the bones back together, which had infuriated the girl, but she had to do her best. She tried to adjust the bone alignment as much as she could at that point but ultimately she had to settle for an imperfect resolution. The boy would be left with a limp. But at least his leg hurt slightly less when she finished her work, now he could sleep without waking up every hour to the pain.

Haskell still wouldn't agree to pay Sam, because according to him, they had agreed on her healing Kaz completely, which she failed doing. But he offered her a deal.

"We could have use for a healer. If you'll work for the Dregs for, say, a few months, you'll get your money," he proposed.

"A few months? For just a hundred and fifty kruge? Are you kidding me?" Sam scoffed, crossing her arms across her chest.

"It also caters meals, and a place to sleep. So yes, a hundred and fifty kruge for a few months."

She took in a deep sigh. "Three hundred."

"One eighty."

Sam thought about it for a moment. She desperately needed money to find a place to stay and to eat - and she had to start somewhere. A young girl like her wasn't picked out as the first one when it came to healing jobs, and she'd starve soon if she didn't get any money from anywhere. "You'd better not scam me or I swear..." she trailed off threateningly before going silent again. Then after a couple of minutes more, she sighed and shook her head.

"Two hundred," she finally said reluctantly.

Haskell smirked victoriously, offering Sam his hand. And so, she became a healer for the Dregs. Not for just a few months, permanently. It was Kaz who proposed to Haskell to hire her properly, saying they'd have use for her skills in the future too.

Sam had become friends with Kaz. Or rather, she had started to consider him a friend. And maybe something more was brewing under her hazel eyes as she looked at Kaz, a little bit more concern when he came to her with a stab wound than what she had with her other friends, and it didn't take long before her friends started teasing her about it. Especially when Jesper came along, he declared to recognize someone having a crush anywhere.

She wasn't sure how Kaz felt about her though. The boy was a complicated case, their whole relationship was complicated. Other days, Sam was sure she just saw him blush and hold back a smile at something she said to him and the next, he shot a glare at her if she complimented him. Maybe she was just imagining things, daydreaming invading reality.

Sam gave Kaz one of her watercolor paintings as a gift on his every birthday, and he bought her new colors and brushes in return. Sometimes, a book appeared on her night table out of nowhere while she was showering, and the only person she had told about wanting to read that book had been Kaz. But he never admitted it - didn't deny it either though. But their friendship seemed to grow every month - he even told her about Jordie.

As years went on, Kaz took Per Haskell's place as the leader of the Dregs. And suddenly, his relationship with Sam took a big leap of distance. She wasn't sure what was wrong between them but it seemed like he had no interest to spend time with Sam now when he was the leader and talked to her only about work matters. It frustrated her, and Sam wished he'd just tell her what was wrong. Had she done something? Pushed him too far without noticing? Or did he value his leadership more than their friendship now? Whatever it was, she couldn't understand why her best friend wouldn't see her anymore or talk to her unless there were business matters at hand.

There was something she didn't know though - the reason Kaz was distancing himself from Sam was exactly because he was a leader now. And if his enemies ever found out that Sam held Kaz's heart in her hands, he could lose her. And that would break him - Sam was his weakness, and he shouldn't have weaknesses. But he couldn't kick Sam out either, he would basically kick her straight to her grave if he did that.

Jesper and Inej both noticed what was up with them, and after weeks of him pretending not listening, he went up to Sam's door, telling her he wanted to speak to her.

She let him in, and they just stood there for a moment. Kaz was trying to form his thoughts into words and force them out while Sam hugged herself.

"I'm scared of you getting hurt." Kaz muttered finally, his voice hoarse. He squeezed his cane and continued, "if any of the rivaling gangs gets to know how valuable you are, they're going to kidnap you." And if they find out how much you mean to me.

The girl frowned, plopping down to sit on her bed. For a moment, Kaz was taken back to the first night of her trying to heal his leg.

"I don't like to be touched," he had told her, and Sam had offered him a reassuring smile.

"I'll try to be quick."

And then she had talked with him about anything and everything, tried to distract him from her slight brushes against his leg as he tried to inspect the bone fracture properly.

Then Haskell had told Sam that she has to get Kaz walking properly within a few days as that was what was agreed on. Kaz remembered staring at the ceiling that night as Sam had applied some numbing cream on his leg, and he had just bit on his lip hard enough to draw blood, trying to hide his panic attack from her. Water, bodies, rot, Jordie dragging him under. All those images flashed through his head. Sam seemed to notice something wrong, and paused and was about to ask something, but Kaz turned to his side and vomited on the floor before she could. After, she didn't ask questions about it, which had made Kaz grateful. Most of the time, people would try to draw out an answer to why did he become so pale or angry at someone who was just ruffling his hair. But she hadn't asked anything, she even helped him to clean up.

That night alone had made Kaz to begin falling for her, he had later realised. The first person who actually cared of their patient and not "just" do the job. Sam had listened to him when he told her that he doesn't like touch, and had cared enough to stop when she had seen Kaz turning pale.

Sam's voice pierced his thoughts, "Kaz, are you saying that..." She left the rest of the sentence unsaid, but it hung in the air anyway. Kaz knew what she was going to say, and he nodded slowly.

She sighed softly, closing her eyes and Kaz saw a smile spreading on her face as she turned her face towards her lap. Kaz took it as a good sign, slowly sitting beside her on the bed.

"Inej was right," she mumbled and chuckled. Kaz frowned, but she didn't continue from that. Instead, she smiled at Kaz, inching her hand closer to his gloved one, but not touching. Kaz looked at their hands for a moment, and then very carefully, linked their pinkies. They both blushed at the contact and Kaz felt like a lovesick teenager, which he actually was right now, but he wouldn't admit that.

Maybe they could get their relationship to work, maybe he would be able to protect her. There were risks, but if they both were willing to face them... he'd give everything he had to keep her safe and happy.

[sleepless-crows]

i heard someone who watched the show before reading the books say that the pekka vs kaz storyline was better in the show like. i don't know where that post is and i forgot their reasoning but. no 💖

just saw someone with the worst take ever

[southslates]

loving you is a losing game

@kanejweek day three: adventure (outer space) / kanej / pre-canon - one-shot - rated T / read on ao3! / 2076 words

Kaz doesn’t understand himself, his own convictions and the way his heart changes its beat next to Inej. Or rather, he does understand. He’s Dirtyhands, and that’s why he can never let his emotions slide out of the corner of his mind he keeps them hidden in and find a home in his mouth. There is no salvation left to spare for him; not in this life, not in the next. He doesn’t want salvation, anyway.

It's so hard to convince himself that’s true in moments like this. Inej is on her stomach next to him, her arm an inch away from his. Despite the way he finds air rising out of his lungs when his gaze loiters on her for too long, her skin disgusts him as much as any other. There are no exceptions to his special kind of hell. He would do so much to beat this illness of the mind, but there is nothing left for him to do.

“You said he’d be here by now,” he growls at her, keeping his face turned away from her hooded features, staring at the street and breathing in, and then out, keeping his mind and body at ease. He has a job to do—a vase to lift—and he cannot be distracted, he cannot be distracted, he cannot—

Kaz grits his teeth. He will not look at Inej and see the stars above illuminate her features in the most dangerous of ways, like a temptation. He cannot do this, he cannot do this, he remembers Imogen. He is Kaz Brekker and he has done so much to make himself a myth but this he cannot do. He has acknowledged this as his weakness.

And if it is his weakness, she is too, by extension. 

“Stoepker has been on time every day for the past week,” she says quietly. “It would just be unlucky. We should go back to the Slat, it’s too late now, anyway.”

Unlucky, it’s unlucky. Kaz had looked into the Emerald Palace through the roof while he and Inej had scaled the rooftops to lead them to the Stoepker residence and seen Petjer Stoepker playing at the tables, light in his eyes and a brunette on his arm. He’d known the man wouldn’t be here—he had downed far too many drinks to even fathom walking the stretch to his mansion in the dark. He and Inej needed Stoepker to come home so they could sneak into his upstairs safe in the moment in took him to deactivate the trip wires around his garden. The job wasn’t supposed to be hard.

They could have gone back to the Slat two hours ago, when the sun had just dipped below the wintery horizon. He could have sat at his desk and kept on going through the reports fucking Per Haskell kept delegating to him while Inej went down to spend time with Jesper or sat silently at his window.

But he hadn’t. He’d known Stoepker wouldn’t come back and yet he’d forced her to stay like this next to him, just a hand’s width apart on a freezing rooftop, silent, just so he could feel her presence next to him, just so he could be next to her and tempt himself, so he could turn to her and not his paperwork. He feels distinctly stupid, and something else blossoms in his chest. He sighs and slides off the roof. Inej follows, lithe and agile with her good legs.

“Back to the Slat,” she questions, and he nods. What else is there to do? There’s always more work. Not that he doesn’t enjoy his work, the brick-by-brick. He wants something more, but he doesn’t even know what that is.

He slides till the end of the roof and then grabs his cane next to him. He doesn’t trust himself to scale Ketterdam’s roof in the pitch-dark, especially the day after a snow. Kaz doesn’t need to break his other leg. Though Inej doesn’t have to, she joins him, feet touching the ground without noise to the ear. He can feel her steps reverberate through his chest. And then something else.

He turns to her in the dark, and he can feel the blush rise to her cheeks. “I’m a bit hungry,” she admits. “Nina said we could get waffles in the middle of night. I’m late to meet her, but Jesper has probably already told her we’re out.”

Of course he’s the monster, the boy with hands caked with blood who takes her away from her good friends—the sassy heartrender who can pull her close, the flirty sharpshooter who can kiss her cheek. Kaz is jealous of Nina and Jesper, and he knows why. He can and will have everything but what they have with Inej.

He doesn’t mean to say it. He means to let her go, to tell her to meet Nina, to erase his chapter in her night. It’s what he would do if he was a better man. Instead he says, “The Finch Inn serves hutspot into the night,” and gestures for her to follow him with a glare.

Kaz Brekker is a terrible man. He can give Inej nothing, but he wants to take so much regardless. It’s a strange sort of weakness that has him lead her to the first place he ate in Ketterdam, treasure to a newly minted orphan. Perhaps a small part of him wants to erase those memories he had with Jordie, write her smile and laugh and goodness into that crevice of his mind. He is such a terrible man.

/

Kaz takes kruge out of his pocket and accepts two bowls of hutspot, placing one in Inej’s hand. She winces when the bowl touches her with a small huff of air he wants to spend the rest of his life daydreaming about, and he takes it back. He can’t feel the heat through his gloves.

They walk outside of the inn. Kaz means to walk back to the Slat with her, but Inej side-eyes their surroundings closely before nodding him towards a small alley. He follows her—he follows nobody, he is his own person, not some sort of obedient dog—he follows her onto a rickety fire escape on the side of the building. Inej scales to the top and reaches to grab the bowls from his hand so he can regrip his cane properly.

She looks into his eyes for a moment, and keeps his face straight, cruel, he’s good at that. She is never disparaged from even his worse glares, and he makes the step up.

The roof of the Inn is a bit clunky, but he navigates himself upon it well enough. Inej is seated near the chimney, as though it is warm, and he drags himself on the other side of it. This is good. There are feet between them, and their hands do not touch as she passes him her bowl.

“Thank you,” she says to him as she takes a bite, stares into the distance of the sky. She is watching the Kerch stars, shining in this dark winter night, and he is watching her. He cannot stare at the heavens, lest he be reminded that the distance between the stars is the same as the space between him and everything he wants and can never have. Her.

Kaz says nothing, just takes a bite of his own hutspot. It’s warm, a nice contrast to the chill that he is now feeling keenly in his bad leg. He refuses to groan, simply stays silent as Inej stares off into the distance. He will not ask her to start a conversation, he cannot.

“My mother used to show me constellations,” she begins, his little Suli idealist, this girl with all her hope and her stories. She reminds him of a little boy who loved omelet stands, who didn’t understand the true evil of this city of greed. “They were clearer in Ravka, when the caravans stopped in the woods. They’re so hard to see here.”

He wants more. He wishes she would laugh, he doesn’t know why. “Ravka is heavily under-industrialized. It’s why in the long-term they’ll lose the war.”

She turns to glare at him, but he can tell it’s lacking severity. He knows when Inej is truly angry at him. He’s seen the look in her eyes when he raises his voice or kills too quickly. She knows he always has his reasons, so he doesn’t understand why she acts shocked every time. She cannot still have faith in him like her precious Suli constellations.

“You’re so grim, Kaz,” she complains. “They’re beautiful.”

“They’re lights in the sky,” he says, looking at her. “Made of small amounts of metal and gases. They are terrifying.”

“How do you know all these things?” Inej asks him. “You haven’t gone to university. You know about the stars and you do maths.”

“I learn myself,” he shrugs, gives her a truthful answer. “It comes easy.”

“You are infuriating. You and the way your mind works. Shevrati,” she calls him. He hopes that is affection under her voice. He has no idea where he stands with Inej, just that even he cannot fathom the depths of himself. The depths of his desire—

That is not a thought he will finish. It is not. “I could say the same about you and your saints,” he says.

Inej shifts up against the roof. “My mother once said the stars would lead me home.”

Something cruel wants to bite its way up through Kaz’s throat. The stars watched as you were taken on a slaver’s ship and at the Menagerie. Stop having faith in these stars, in these pretty words. They are meaningless, Inej. There is just you on your feet and your knives and your vengeance. That is all. He bites it down. Inej is not him, Inej is better than him. He cannot be anything for her, but he can be better than Dirtyhands.

“Keep your eyes on the stars, then,” he says, his mouth closing around his last bite, setting the plate next to him on the roof. “Perhaps they, of all things in this world, will be unpredictable.” His words bite with sarcasm, but they are not cruel.

Inej sets her own bowl down too. “Thank you,” she repeats again, and then turns to face him, that gaze which had been observing galaxies. “Do you know much about the stars?”

“I know they’re balls of gas. They’re nothing mythical, like your sun summoners and shadow summoners would have you think. If we got close, I’d think durasts could have their fun with them.”

“It’s nice to pretend,” she says with a flush of her cheeks. “You could pretend, Kaz.”

“Pretend what, Inej?” he doesn’t need to say her name but he does, hoping she doesn’t catch the way his mouth shapes her name, like a benediction. “Pretend like your prayers go to some mythical powers beyond the sky? There is nobody watching over me.”

“You’re wrong,” Inej says. “You could pretend that balls of light floating in the sky are sacred. What’s stopping you?”

“Presence of mind.”

“Sometimes I hate you,” Inej says, absentmindedly. He knows she is joking and he doesn’t know why that still stings. He cannot say the same back. He cannot even press a lie that Inej is not important to him to his lips. He is ridiculous.

“I paid for your dinner, Ghafa,” he says. She giggles a bit at that, laying against the chimney, and then fades off. He dares to look at her again and sees her leaning against the heat, her eyes half-closed in a strange smile.

“That you did, Kaz.” She says his name so often when he speaks. He’s not sure why—perhaps it’s something she does in Suli, and she is unused to Kerch language. He thinks about teaching her how to read on his floor almost a year ago, and he wants to kill into silence and cut himself out of this sky. He’s Kaz Brekker, he needs to be better than this.

They should go. He has work to do, she should meet Nina and Jesper. They should go, but they don’t. They sit on the Inn and stare at the stars in the distance together until the sun carves itself over the horizon and reminds Kaz that this cannot be his story.

[ineffablebooklover]

Oh goodness, I'm terrible at writing prompts, hmm......

Are you familiar with D&D/Pathfinder/tabletop RPG's in general? I'd love to see The Crows rolling up characters and playing a one-shot. I can't decide if I'd rather Kaz or Jesper be the GM. Both sound horribly great. 😆

Otherwise, in a very un-original but beloved AU, I'd love to see HP Drarry and Romione + SoC Kanej, Wesper, and Helnik in some kind of Coffee Shop setting (I owned my own shop for the better part of a decade, so I love those).

And Matthias always being alive, please, if you do either of these. ;)

And I don't care about fic length; whatever you feel inspired to do!

💜

The Crow Cafe Coffee Shop AU~ with the Crows, Ronmione, and Drarry

authors note: I got a bit carried away with the idea, and I added some plot. There’s going to be multiple parts to this (yay!) so I guess keep in tune!

Part 1. Kaz’s Crow Cafe

There is a cafe, down some streets in Downtown Ketterdam’s Stave, run by a boy and his friends. There, you can find stories, romance, and most importantly, a decent cup of coffee.

“Not for my coffee, you podge,” Kaz scoffed, slapping away Jesper’s offer of sugar with a glove-clad hand. “I’m just saying sugar prices are getting higher. We need to compensate for this fact.”

Kaz waited for questions, looking around the table. No one said anything. Kaz looked directly at Jesper, who sighed, taking back the sugar and dumping it in his own coffee.

“And how do you want us to do that?”

It was a chilly Saturday morning in early-September, and Kaz was giving his Saturday morning pre-opening briefing.

“Kaz, people come here for the low coffee prices. We can’t hike the prices really high,” Inej added. Jesper nodded, grabbing another packet of sugar.

Kaz sighed. “I know. I’m working on it. Just thought I’d let you two know.”

“Don't mind if I do,” Jesper cut in, pouring the sugar in his overly-caffeinated drink, “but shouldn’t good old Mr. Haskell be thinking about this instead of us?”

Kaz sipped his coffee, shrugging. “‘Old Mr. Haskell’, as you say Jesper, is old and inert.” Kaz sent a glance Inej’s way. “He won’t be doing much about it.”

Jesper just chugged his coffee, bouncing up and ready to start the day.

“Jesper, was it wise to take in that much sugar and caffeine?” Inej inquired as Jesper bounced around the shop.

“Probably, not,” Jesper grinned, flipping the sign to ‘Open’ as a few early-risers started to form a line in front of the Cafe.

A girl with tied back light brown hair entered the cafe first, a stack of textbooks and notebooks in her arms. She ordered a coffee and a pastry, and started working at a table.

She was followed by a tall, burly, blond male who Kaz was sure he’d seen before. Trailing him was Nina, a girl Kaz knew from previous jobs he had done with her to help keep up the profits. Next to the composed blond dude, Nina looked dead tired.

“Why do we even have to get up this early?” Nina whined.

“I have to do things later today and Sunday, this is a good time to work on the project,” the blond replied.

Nina groaned. “Good for you. I was going to get my beauty sleep.”

“Well you get to have a beautiful coffee instead,” Jesper said cheerfully. “Good morning, Nina! What will it be for you and your…” Jesper looked the blonde up and down. “...this hunk of a man, here?”

Nina smirked tiredly. “Yeah, that’s my hunk of a man to you,” she pointed a lazy finger at Jesper.

The blond huffed. “So impudent and improper. My name is Matthias. I will have a black coffee.”

Jesper typed it into his screen quickly. “And no cream, no sugar, nothing sweet?”

Matthias shook his head.

“Anyways, I’ll have a mocha, like 10 shots of coffee and lots of creamer,” Nina cut in.

Jespers slender fingers flew across the board. “Okay so that’s one coffee as bitter as Kaz’s soul, and a mocha with 4 shots of espresso and half of it basically milk. Is that all for today?”

Nina scanned the pastry rack and ordered two chocolate chip muffins. The two sat down, getting stuff out for a project.

Meanwhile, Inej bounced around in her athletic wear, preparing coffees. She finished one for the girl named Hermione, grabbed the apple strudel she wanted, and headed over.

“Hermione?”

Hermione turned, and greeted Inej with a smile. “Thank you. I’ll take those.”

Inej noticed the bigger table Hermione had chosen, and tilted her head. “Are you waiting for someone?”

Hermione nodded. “Yes, my friends. They’re supposed to be here in about an hour, I’m just catching up on studying before they come. Is that alright with…” Hermione stared into the distance, where Kaz stood ominously staring at Inej.

“Oh he… he’s alright.,” Inej lifted a hand to wave at Kaz, who noticed and looked away. “That’s Kaz for you,” she mumbled under her breath.

“Pardon?” Hermione asked.

Inej just laughed nervously, brushing it off. “Enjoy your breakfast!” Inej went back to making coffee behind the counter watching Jesper chat up customers left and right. Inej was glad for his enthusiasm so early in the morning, she never liked taking Saturday morning shifts at 6AM, especially if they had meetings at 5:45.

“How’s it going Jesper?” Inej asked while preparing another cup. Jesper nearly jumped out of his skin.

“Holy- oh Inej. Oh Inej don’t sneak up on me like that. Besides that, I’m doing fine!”

Inej nodded and disappeared behind towers of cups and spouts of coffee. She prepared Nina’s things and brought it over. The two seemed to be arguing.

“I’m just saying- ooh, food!” Nina gasped, sitting up straight for the first time that morning. Inej smiled, placing the coffee and muffins down on the table. Matthias just watched her, arms crossed.

“Enjoy the food,” Inej smiled, then went back to the counter.

Kaz watched her silently from the side, then, noticing the line, straightened his gloves and walked over to help make coffee. They went through orders silently, Inej doing all of the walking, but they enjoyed each other's company. Inej and Kaz would work on an order or two, Kaz would place his finished ones on a counter for Inej to take. While Inej was gone, Kaz would get started on the next thing, and so on.

Eventually, Kaz went into the back and disappeared for a while, leaving Inej with the coffee work.

By this time, Hermione’s friends had come, and their study group looked like they were having a great time, though only ⅓ of them seemed to actually be doing any studying.

By 8, Inej and Jesper switched spots. Inej found that Jesper still loved people-watching, even behind the counter. Or... was he looking for someone?

Her suspicions were correct when a boy walked in, with ruddy, orange-brown curls. Jesper leaned into her, pointing him out. “I think he’s starting to be a consistent customer. At least on weekends. Have you seen him around school?”

Inej had in fact seen him around school. His name was Wylan and he was in Kaz’s math class, and in her Art and Gym class. During lunch, he was usually just drawing something or doing math homework by himself.

Inej nodded, then went back to a customer, leaving Jesper to speculate by himself.

When the boy with golden-brown curls stepped up, she asked what he wanted.

He looked up at the board for less than a second, then back to Inej. “I’ll have an iced coffee. With the cream.” Inej nodded and punched it into the computer.

“Your name?” She asked.

“Wylan,” Wylan smiled. Inej pretended to punch it in as if she hadn’t already.

“And… if you want, the Crow Cafe is thinking of starting a sort of rewards club for regular members. There’s more info up on the board, but all we need is your number,” Inej added effortlessly.

Wylan looked up at the board and back to Inej. “Uh… sure,” he said tentatively. He gave her his number and she pretended to type it in, instead writing it down on a piece of paper after he left the counter. She then looked up at the board to confirm her suspicions. There was nothing about a rewards club. So he can’t read, and yet he still pretends…

She tucked that information away, smirking as she slid the paper into Jesper’s back pocket.

Everything was going pretty smoothly (besides Nina and Matthias’ constant bickering) until the door opened and in walked the most pretentiously blond man Inej and seen, with an even blonder son.

_end of part 1_ thanks for reading, and for the commission!

next commission: Sleeping Beauty AU :)

[claudiarya]

Hello I’ve written this short fic. based on the clip we’ve got from Shadow and Bone of Jesper and Inej performing, but with a twist!

You can read it on Ao3 as well

Silks, Guns and All the Things Fun (Not) 

Words count: 2898 

The chattering at the Crow Club was thicker than usual and it ricocheted around the lower floor of the building, bouncing off the draped walls. Kaz Brekker made his way there from where he had been dealing cards on the upper part of the club. It had been quite a profitable night, with many pigeons all too eager to let the rush of the gambling go to their head and lose everything. His cane tapped on the stairs as he descended them, an ominous and irregular melody announcing who was coming down those steps. He stopped just before the las two and scanned the room, his shark eyes checking if everything was in order. Kaz saw at least a couple of people flinching when his eyes had met theirs. Good. It seemed that his infamy was the same unblemished, or rather very blemished, story of terror as ever. He had worked all of his angles to make it that way, and he had every intention to keep it up as long as he lived, his thirst for personal revenge too strong to be sated in any other way.

Kaz threw another glance around the room until he found who he was looking for. He approached her, men and women making themselves scarce as he passed them. Inej was in the corner, intent on untangling something thick, the crimson fabric like a river of blood in her hands. Her long hair was tied up in a coil at the nape of her neck as she usually wore it, a light vest covering her shoulders and arms, and peeking from a sleeve he saw something wrapped around her forearm. She had covered her feather tattoo since she was going to remove the vest and perform in bare arms, something that had stirred not little emotions inside the hollow of his armor.  

“I trust that everything is ready,” Kaz rasped, looking down at her from where he was standing. Not surprised in the slightest, as if she had known all along who was about to speak to her, Inej kept her eyes on her task. “Good evening to you, too Kaz. How are you?” Her tone unbothered if a little bit sarcastic…

This girl. If it had been any other person speaking to him like that, they would have run away with a few broken limbs or without teeth. Or perhaps both. Kaz couldn’t understand why, but his relationship, if that could be called, with her had always felt different. Nobody treated him the way she did, he didn’t allow it, but whatever it was that propelled him to always find excuses to talk to her, be near to her when he could, he didn’t like it.

Liar. A voice in his head reprimanded him. him. You keep lying to yourself, Brekker. He blinked. Usually he would have ignored her, but that night he didn’t know what forced possessed him and he decided to indulge her.

“Yes, hello Inej darling. I’ll be better when all of this is over, and we’ve made our profit.”

When the term of endearment had left his lips, she had looked at him with a sonorous sigh. Inej raised to her feet, not really making a difference since she was so small, the red silks now draped on one shoulder, and her eyes peered straight into his. The amber, low lights of this particular floor of the club reflected into her irises, making it look like she had flames burning behind them.

Kaz thought again to himself that she had never looked more like a painted icon of those Saints she so much adored than in that moment and gripped his cane tighter to try and snap out of his reveries, to try and quiet the raging emotions inside. The ridges of the crow’s head unmistakable even under his gloved hands.

“Everything will go as planned: we’ll perform, and we’ll make sure all of these pigeons are probably plucked. Don’t worry.” She passed him, careful to avoid touching him and went to hang the silks she had been preparing.

Kaz promised not to let his gaze follow her but failed. He saw how with a graceful movement she looped one end of the prop into the hook on the wall. Once again, he forced himself not to let his thoughts wander too much and with a slightly louder voice called after her.

“If you’re so ready, where in Ghezen’s name, is Jesper?”

“He’ll be here,” she shrugged not preoccupied at all.

“He’d better be.” He checked his time piece and looking once again at her he said: “We start in five minutes. Go get yourself prepared.”

He heard Inej exhaling loudly. Again. A habit, he realized, she had acquired in these last months. Was it perhaps because she was starting to feel a little more comfortable with this life he had given her, with his gang… with him?

Inej got closer to him, not intimidated at all to look at him straight in the eye.

“I know what I’m doing, but if I’ll be ever looking for a coach, I’ll know who to turn to. Now, excuse me.”

She brushed past him, one instant she was there and then next gone.

***

Fitting how Kaz had found the darkest part of the room to stand in during Jesper’s and Inej’s little show. The sharpshooter had turned up at the last minute, literally the last, when the audience had already gathered around the little space they had arranged specifically for the two of them, and Kaz had already excogitated a hundred different way to kill him. He had of course given a piece of his mind, seething to the gangly boy, who in returned had just shrugged, winked at him and told him that “People love big entrances, I’m making us a favor,” before scurrying to his designated seat at the center of the makeshift stage.

Kaz had come up with this idea months prior, but Inej and Jesper had actually started performing only a couple of weeks ago. He had had to use all of his most convincing arguments to let Per Haskell see how incredibly fruitful this would all be. That old man and his drunken ass…

After many requests from his lieutenant part he had conceded, and Kaz had made it look so as if the leader of the Dregs had had this brilliant idea himself, a thing that had worked out for the best since he had gone strolling around the Barrel boasting how his club was offering entertainments that no other could. A good publicity indeed, and Dirtyhands had smirked pleased with himself, his plan had worked. As always.

His breath caught in his throat when he saw Inej climbing the silks, her fluid movements made it look so easy, as if she was taking a stroll instead of keeping herself up with only her body strength.

“Ladies ang gentlemen, thugs and thieves,” started Jesper walking the perimeter of the free space and catching the attention of the people there. “Tonight you’ll see something that only few would be brave to attempt. My lovely assistant will perform one of her tricks with a card stuck between her lips,” at that the girl in question removed from thin air a card and showed it to the audience, only one part of her body now supporting her, the silks wrapped around it, as the other half hanged from them. “While I will attempt to shoot at it.”

Many gasps could be heard around the room as well as excited whispers.

“Let’s begin!” Jesper said, now with a much more serious tone.

Kaz had to admit it, even if at times Jesper was a total buffoon he knew how to mesmerize an audience, and he had them in the palm of his hands.

The sharpshooter took his position, and removed from the ground a little polished, silver tray. Kaz had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes as Jesper looked at his reflection winked at himself and then kissed his beloved revolver, while exhaling with (fake) preoccupation. Could this boy be more theatrical than that? The Bastard of the Barrel sighed, convinced that there was no end to his second in command’s love for the dramatics. Inej wrapped her limbs expertly in the silks and then with a fearless dive, she let herself fall so that her body was hanging upside-down.

The split second before Jesper could shoot, Kaz’s and Inej’s eye met, and the world seemed to stop for a bit.

He knew damn well that the Zemeni boy was the best shot around, he had never seen him miss. Never. On top of that, he suspected that the little secret he was keeping from everyone, but that Kaz had of course found out about, somehow helped him with his formidable aim. Yet… why in the name of his beloved kruge did he feel nervous for her?

You need to get it together and stop thinking this sentimental stuff. He scolded himself, not for the first time that night.

After a second or perhaps an eternity he moved his gaze away from hers.

Jesper shot and… the bullet struck the card exactly in the middle. The raucous cheering of the audience was what ground him completely again. Inevitably, as if a magnet drawn to the pole, he saw Inej finish her performance with a couple of flips, before landing as effortlessly and elegantly as ever, a big grin on her face. Kaz himself couldn’t help the light movement upward of the corner of his mouth, that died immediately when he noticed how the sharpshooter, now standing, turned around to return the smile, and finally joined her, taking her hand to bow.

That nagging feeling inside him was as demanding as ever. He hated it. He wanted it to stop.

The applause of the people surrounding him turned into a distant sound, as a clear thought struck him then and there. He was never going to have that easy demeanor Jesper had with her, he was never going to be able to take her hand without drowning, he could never tell her that despite all his effort he couldn’t resist the constant pull he felt whenever she was close and that made everything even worse.

Inej’s eyes managed to find his again in his dark corner, the smile she still had lightened her features, but it dropped as soon as she saw what was a very grim expression marking his face.

He wanted to yell. Tell her to keep on smiling, because he felt very much alive whenever she did, like none other things could, but instead he just gripped his cane tighter, and forced himself to look around the room.

When Jesper and Inej approached him after the audience had dispersed a bit, he was still waging his inner war.

“Wasn’t our Wraith amazing?” Jesper asked excitedly, an arm slung around the shorter girl’s shoulders, before adding “Wasn’t I amazing?”

“You just did what you had to. No more no less. And besides, many of these people had already seen this particular performance, so I wouldn’t let all those adoring people get to your head.” He rasped before leaving them standing.

As he made his way to return to the upper level of the Club, he heard the sharpshooter sighing loudly. “You can never win with him, can you?”

“No one can,” was Inej’s curt answer.

He knew her eyes were following him; he could feel it and he never detested more the vindictive and cold creature he had become than now.

***

The Crow Club at that hour of the night, or rather early morning, was deserted. Kaz had ordered the others to go back to the Slat as he stayed behind to make sure everything was in order before close-up. He once again descended the stairs that would bring him to the lower floor, the silks and the other props gone and already been stashed away. As he scanned the room though, he noticed something on the ground, near where the silks were usually hanged. In the dim light he could see it was a piece of dark cloth, and as he got closer, he noticed that it wasn’t just any piece of cloth, but the one Inej had wrapped around her forearm to cover her tattoo. He crouched down, with no little protest from his bad leg, and took it in one gloved hand, the gesture almost reverent.

If someone were to enter the room now, they would have found Kaz Brekker, Bastard of the Barrel, Dirtyhands himself, on his knees cradling a strip of cloth in his hands. He shook his head in disbelief and made to stand up, when CRASH!

Something had fallen and in his fear of having been discovered, Kaz quickly tucked the wrap in his suit pocket as he made leverage on his cane to stand. He saw that what had startled him had been a stool, now on the ground. He passed a hand through his hair in exasperation. He really needed to get a grip.

In the days following Kaz didn’t realize that out of nowhere he would put his hand in his pocket and rub the little piece of fabric between his fingers, a thing that oddly enough always managed to calm him. He didn’t realize it, until he did. It had been a late night in which he had been working for the Dregs and his pathetic excuse of a leader, now scheming, now scribbling and adding numbers. The little thing had been placed on his shambled desk, a trusted companion of his. He had meant to return it, if not to Inej directly, to at least casually leave it where he had found it, but in the end he hadn’t. That night he had sent his Wraith out to gather information regarding a certain mercher’s rich art collection, and he hadn’t almost heard her, almost, entering his attic room from the window. Kaz hadn’t known how he had been able to stash her piece of fabric away before she could see him gently passing it between his fingers.

He only imagined the conversation they would have had if he had taken a second too long to hide it.

You know Inej, I casually found it on the ground but instead of leaving it there I’m keeping your arm wrapping as a stress-relieving token. But it’s not like it may look. I’m not obsessed with you or anything.

Could he be more pathetic than that? Since when had he gone this soft? Oh yes, he knew, ever since he had paid her indenture and she had joined the Dregs, that was when. To make things worse that night had ended with Inej casually sitting on his window seat: her head resting on the wall, her eyes closed. Indefinite and unnamed emotions had stirred once again inside of him, as a very precise, but not really polite word echoed in his head… he was so screwed.

From that moment on he had debated whether to just give it to her and telling her that he had found it but that it had just slipped his mind until then, or continuing keeping the damn thing. A constant battle in his mind that complemented the one inside his heart.

He kept it.

If Kaz was never going to have Inej, as he wished he could, he at least could have a part, no matter how small and insignificant, of her.

That day, his feet carried him on their own accord outside her door, a floor exactly below his room. They had encountered some troubles with some too cocky members of the Black Tips and the whole ordeal had left them all pretty shaken – except Kaz of course – and with two dead members of his crew. Kaz didn’t know why he was standing here, on the other side of her closed door. She might not even be here, he had thought trying to find excuses to turn back from where he had come.

But he knew. He somehow sensed that she was inside her little room.

What exactly was he thinking, what was he doing here as a gaping fish out her door? Did he want to make sure she was okay? See if she needed anything?

Oh yes, because you’ve been nothing but an example of emotional support, Brekker.

When he was about to turn and go back to the attic, cursing himself for his stupidity, the door in front of him opened. Inej stood there, and for once her hair was not tied back but loose on her shoulders, cascading in delicate waves around her frames, the result of having kept it tight in a braid.

“Is anything wrong, Kaz? Why are you standing outside my door as if you’d seen a Saint?” she had asked.

I think I wanted to see you, I’m not sure why and I’m going insane. He thought, but of course didn’t say, too cowardly and bitter to do so. Instead, Kaz quickly put his hand in his pocket, and found what he knew would be there. Gripping her piece of fabric, he managed to answer with his usual lack of emotions.

“Go find Jesper. I found us a job. What would you say to one million kruge?”

[doorsclosingslowly]

They've Made of Our Bodies a Bleeding Stair

Jesper and Kaz try to retrieve Inej from Ketterdam without being recognized and murdered—and without Kaz getting ransomed back to Ravka as the the wayward Sun Summoner.

11k | Sun Summoner Kaz AU pt. 2 | Jesper/Kaz, Inej, past Kaz/Darkling content note: non-linear narrative, explicit sex, roleplay of past rape

“I want you to be him.”

“Of course,” Jesper replies. Then, articulately, once his brain’s caught up, “Uh. What?”

“The Darkling.” Kaz has turned his face away. He’s looking at the ramshackle marriage bed that takes up the bulk of this room he’s lured Jesper into. He unerringly picked the right closed door, too; he skipped the squeaky floorboards, as if he knew the exact layout of this—but it’s Kaz. He knows everything, even some dilapidated house in the Kerch countryside. The bed was probably a masterpiece of craftsmanship, when it was carved from some dark wood, a thousand years ago or whatever. The way it looks, it must’ve been old already when the previous owners of this farmhouse got it, and from the state of the house, they abandoned this place decades ago. Quite a lot of the furniture’s missing, either sold off when the place was left or stolen afterwards, but that bed was too worthless already.

The mattress is still there too. Probably fucking teeming with moth larvae and maggots and their combined accumulated shit, so it doesn’t bode too well for Jesper, how forcefully Kaz is staring at it.

“Please say it doesn’t involve the bed.”

“You said yes,” Kaz rasps, which is all the information Jesper needs to start gagging. Fake-gagging, for now, but if he sees even one wriggly little worm he’ll…

Bed. Darkling. That still doesn’t really… Want you to be him—oh—

“Yes, Jesper.” And how the hell with his ramrod tense back still turned towards Jesper—Jesper, who’s done nothing at all, hasn’t said anything except to register his displeasure at the idea of bathing in insect faeces and their squirming little manufacturers!—how the hell Kaz has realized that Jesper’s figured out what he probably means—it must be a confidence trick. Kaz likes those. But how—yeah, it’s not the point, but trying to understand whatever magic Kaz is using on him right now is much, much better for Jesper’s sanity than dwelling on the fact that Kaz might just have insinuated that he wants Jesper to pretend to be the Darkling, specifically the Darkling from that time he told Jesper about back in the Little Palace, the time he threw up after. The time he thought he could suppress his discomfort with touch long enough to seduce the Darkling into a partnership—seduce seduce, which means he wants—to flirt with Jesper? To sleep with Jesper? Is he actually saying he—

Oh. There’s a cracked mirror on the wall above the bed. That’s how Kaz saw his face.

Jesper would chalk the hallucination up to a hangover, but he’s not even drunk. Neither is Kaz, unless this old ruin of a farmhouse they broke into this morning is hiding barrels of wine the local youth haven’t made off with yet. Also, if he was hallucinating Kaz propositioning him he would—well, Jesper at least hopes he’d have enough self-respect not to make himself a stand-in for the man who bought and imprisoned Kaz for two years, controlled him by using his fears and modifying his body and cutting him off from every other person in the whole court, taking every single object he could have used to protect himself, and whatever those weird spines in Kaz’ chest are he’s probably responsible for them too. Jesper would not, actually, like the first and probably only time he’s allowed to kiss Kaz to be some kind of revenge-by-proxy thing where he recites the Darkling’s lines while Kaz swallows back bile, and then Kaz beats him up. Or murders him. It’s pathetic, but Jesper always imagined that kiss a little sweeter. Kissing over Haskell’s corpse. Kissing over the Darkling’s corpse. Kissing over the corpse of some other piece of shit who’s stupid enough to try using Kaz as their possession.

“Just warning you, I don’t have the costume or the script, so don’t expect something worthy of the Komedie Brute,” is what Jesper says instead.

Kaz’ eyebrow quirks. “You’re acted before, haven’t you? Improvised. You can flirt your way into anything. That was the main reason I kept you around.”

“You kept me around because I’m gorgeous, funny, and an incredible shot. I just play myself, if it’s seduction! Why would I improve upon perfection?”

“This isn’t seduction. He’s already locked me in the Little Palace for months at this point. Two escape attempts have failed. This is… speeding up the process,” Kaz says, nonchalantly enough it makes Jesper want to puke.

Which won’t help anything. He’s already agreed. And Kaz doesn’t care about moral objections, only practical ones. “I need more info. I haven’t actually met the Darkling.”

“You’ve met powerful men. You’ve met men who believe their righteous cause entitles them. You’ve met men mired in greed and vengeance—you’ve met me.”

“I like you.”

“Pretend you don’t, then. You used to complain about me in the Slat—of course I know, I knew everything that went on in the Dregs. You hated the way I seemed to know everything, and held it over you—so does he. You disliked my single-minded focus, the way you all seemed like pawns to me, my mockery. The way I held myself as something far superior to you. That’s a start.” Kaz limps a slow quarter circle around Jesper, and his dark eyes are burning with loathing. Jesper would hold him if he could. “You’re not asking why?”

“Uh, now that you mention—”

“I’m not going to tell you.”

Jesper sighs. Of course. He’s never expected anything else. Then he stands up straight, assuming his best the stick in my ass is so long it’s knocked the word fun from my brain pose that hopefully may pass for authoritative and slimes out, “What business, Mr Brekker?”

“Sun Summoner. Or Sunshine. He figured out Brekker’s a fake name on the first day.”

“Kaz Brekker’s a fake name?!” Jesper should have seen that coming, really… what does he even know about Kaz Brekker, truly? Except—

“It’s a name. It’s real enough. It’s feared. It’s mine.” Kaz’s eyes travel over the cobwebbed wall of the farmhouse bedroom, as if he was searching for the next lie to spin. Except that isn’t one of Kaz’ tells—Jesper’s seen him bamboozle and convince marks of the most stupid tales, and when Kaz wants them to believe him, he looks earnest. Young, depending on the role he plays, old, eager, stupid or wise. He doesn’t bother lying to Dregs, or rather: he doesn’t bother convincing them, usually. All his words are backed by the brutality of his cane. Who could be stupid enough to question even his weirdest utterances. “It just happens not to be one I was born with.”

“So what you’re saying is, the Darkling’s just not Kerch enough to get you?” Jesper grins. “Ketterdam, really—you know, I always really liked that about the Barrel, that healthy dose of ‘You are who you want and we don’t give a fuck to correct you.’ Anyway. Got it. You’re Kaz Brekker, but he’s a dick. Mr Sunbeam, what brings you into my office this evening?”

“The fete, Aleks.” Kaz shrugs off his coat, and then the purple kefta, too. He holds out the kefta in front of him, like he’s expecting Jesper to put it on. Well. That’s as good a start as any, and so Jesper turns and lets Kaz dress him into the robe he never wanted to wear.

“Then he says, ‘You must be nervous. After all, there are few gatherings in the Ketterdam slums that involve such spectacle.’” Kaz has sanded down his rasp somewhat, sounding almost smooth and seductive. He goes into a spiel of the Ravkan court and the inferiority of the Barrel that thankfully, he carries all by himself. Jesper wouldn’t even know what to say, except ‘Stop talking shit about the Barrel, you prick’ and that’s not exactly in character.

Kaz’ eyes periodically dart down to Jesper’s hands, and he realizes he’s fidgeting with the hem of the kefta’s sleeves. He stops.

“I am ready,” Kas says in his normal voice. His normal talking to a mark voice. “I realized what this demonstration represents—that I belong to something greater. It is as you said—we can offer Grisha and Ravkans hope. We. Together.” He stands up straight. Equally on both his legs. He winces. He’s not holding his cane, Jesper realizes. He’s not wearing his gloves. “I am ready to stand by your side. We should be partners. The Sun and the Dark.”

“Uh… great. We’ll be great together. Do great things. Better partners than enemies. Some of those rumours even freaked me out, you know—that kid with the wind-up toy in his throat—”

“Think before you speak, Jesper,” Kaz hisses. “Never let me lead. Never give me control. Every word is a cue to corral your prey where you want it—whether a compliment or a barely-there hidden threat.”

“Is that what you do?”

“Sometimes.” Kaz meets Jesper’s eyes. The tense mask of his face breaks into a smirk. “To be honest, I find the subtle craft of manipulation is wasted on you. You’ll obey anyway. Let’s go back to the start, and focus.”

Jesper shrugs off the kefta again and then lets Kaz dress him, again. He does his best imitation of Kaz, of that early Kaz before Jesper learned how he takes his coffee and before he saw the brutal twist of his face, that one time when the Dime Lions had Jesper on his knees and shoved a gun in his mouth. He plays the imperious tactician in his office who told his goons to drag Jesper up four flights of stairs with a bag over his head, ready to be shot for his debts, and then sold him on the one thing that gave his life meaning.

He insults Dirtyhands’ father and mother to his face, and gets really into it, too: Ketterdam’s full of idiots who’d miss the love of their life because they were busy trying to pry cobblestones off the streets to sell for half a sausage, and the harbour’s so filthy even the fish won’t fuck in it—keeping the brothels in good fish-ness, haha. Because the fish rent rooms so they don’t get fishy sex diseases from the water. Do fish get diseases from sex?

“Kill me now,” Kaz moans, and that one’s probably deserved.

“Anyway, my Sun Summoner, I’m sure you’ll perform well,” Jesper says with just the tiniest hint of slime.

“I am ready. I realized what this demonstration represents—that I belong to something greater. It is as you said—we can offer Grisha and Ravkans hope. We. Together.”

Jesper moves slowly, idly: not caging him in against the bed yet but definitely implying he can and will.

“I am ready to stand by your side. We should be partners. The Sun and the Dark.” Kaz swallows. “‘That means a lot to me. You mean a lot,’ is what you say now.”

How come the Darkling’s not constantly slipping on his own slimy slime trail?

“That means a lot to me.” Jesper gives Kaz a deep, smouldering look. The pockmarks on his cheeks. The jumping muscle in his jaw. The hint of a pained grimace from standing unaided. The boyish grin when he’s totally fucked over another gang boss and gets to gloat. The vicious hatred when someone touches his Crows. Licking powdered sugar off his gloves. “You mean a lot.”

And that’s it. The way Kaz looks at him—this is when the Darkling makes his move.

“I have been waiting for you for so long,” Jesper purrs smarmily, closing his eyes, moving in for the kiss, and—Kaz isn’t there anymore.

It was a single step backwards, because Kaz has hit the edge of the bed already, face blotched with humiliation, and the way he looks at Jesper is—angry is the least terrible interpretation. If he backs out now, Kaz is going to kill him for pitying him or catering to a weakness that honestly—how is not wanting this weak? But Kaz is Kaz, and Jesper’s just Jesper, and—

“Focus,” Kaz hisses. “You own Ravka. You will own the Sun, too. You have waited for this triumph—take it.”

“Why don’t we take this to the—” fuck you, Brekker, for making me say this— “bed, then? Take off your clothes. Don’t be scared.”

That’s a good dig. The kind of insult that looks super caring, unless you know Kaz enough to understand he sees any crack in his image as a dangerous failure. Jesper’s getting the hang of this malicious flirting thing, finally. When this is over, he’ll need to scrub the slime off himself twice.

Kaz looks at Jesper while he disrobes. At him, Jesper hopes against hope, at the real person he’s roped into his worst scheme yet with a goal that’s still totally obscure; at Jesper and not the asshole he’s imagining in his place. Kaz’ eyes trace his cheeks, dance over his shaved head, catch on the lips.

Jesper takes off his boots and gun belt, and the kefta. He undoes the fly of his trousers, pulls his dick out, and stops. He glares at Kaz, daring him to object to the attempt at making this slightly less miserable—Jesper’s the Darkling, he’s in charge, so Kaz can fuck off with his masochism. He’s done undressing. He’s not taking off his shirt or trousers. That layer of cloth stays on.

But Kaz doesn’t object. He stands up straight, naked, brittle, wincing, and then glancing away he mutters, “Ignore the antlers. He hadn’t done that yet.”

Fucking Darkling.

The antlers stick out of Kaz’ collarbones, uneven tines of—possession, mutilation, and Jesper’s eyes catch on a tiny set of grooves on the left one. The scabbed-over cuts underneath. The bruise from the gunshot. And even despite that horror, Kaz has a nice chest. Serious muscle, a street map of scars and a smattering of dark hairs—it feels weirdly improper to stare at him, so Jesper’s eyes dance down to his knobbly left knee and the softly twisted right thigh with its knots of scars, up to the face where he’s biting his harsh pretty mouth, and down again. His dick is nice, fat but not too long, rooted in a tangle of dark curls.

It’s utterly limp.

It’s pathetic, how much that hurts. Of course he isn’t into this. Of course he doesn’t find Jesper remotely attractive. Of course this is just some weird masochistic proxy powerplay for him, some attempt to prove he’s stronger now and can bear it or whatever the fuck, and Jesper’s just the sad stupid body he’s using to enact it.

And of course not even that is enough to make Jesper bow out. Kaz asked.

“Do you want me to suck you off first? Get you in the mood, even a little?” It’s not just for Kaz, that offer, though the whole thing will probably be less painful and awkward if he manages to coax out some arousal. It’s not for younger Jesper, who fantasized about being ordered to blow his boss as penance more often than he likes to admit. No, this is so Jesper can bury his face in Kaz’ pubic hair for a minute. And cry.

Kaz raises an eyebrow. He sounds arch and ice cold when he asks, “Jesper, do you think the Darkling would suck my dick?”

“He should have. Saints, what an asshole,” Jesper shoots back before he can think. “You need a better class of lovers.”

“By which you’re of course implying that you are much better than Aleksander Morozova, the General Kirigan, the Black Heretic, eternal Conqueror and crowned Emperor of Greater Ravka, Salvation to Grishadom, Master of the Fold and He who chained the Sun, et cetera and so fucking on and so fucking forth the Darkling himself?”

“Given I just offered you a blowjob without bringing useless power shit into it, yes.”

“Wrong data, incoherent formula. Correct answer.” Kaz’ grin is crooked. Inordinately fond, and Jesper would have settled for no longer desperately hiding terror but this is—

Yeah.

“I’m going to try to make this roleplay as realistic as I can, but I don’t know if I can forget enough about how to have sex to sink to the Darkling’s level. Also, you don’t happen to have the address of that Grisha Tailor who mutilated you back there? I need them to make my dick look weird. Corkscrew, maybe. Some warts. It’s probably green. I’d peg him for advanced neurological syphilis but I am about to sleep with you, so— ”

“Did you know, Jesper, that the Darkling always wears a gag when he has sex?”

“Shutting up now, boss.”

“Don’t shut up,” Kaz replies instantly. Very, very instantly. “Just keep your disparagements somewhat plausible. And… rare.”

Only to jolt me back, he’s asking. “Got it. So I guess I’m supposed to loom over you a little? How close do you want me?”

“I’ll need to—” Kaz turns around and bends over to root around in the pockets of his coat, and it’s even weirder, worse, looking at his ass when Jesper knows Kaz doesn’t like him back. Kaz tosses over a tiny bottle. Oil. “Give that to me. Tell me to prepare myself.”

“Just saying it once more, boss. You don’t have to go through with—”

“Stop thinking about the Kaz Brekker you know,” Kaz hisses. “Stop anticipating my reactions. Stop caring. You are the Darkling. You have been waiting for the Sun Summoner for decades. You’ve formed your picture of them. This delinquent flinching little rat you bought doesn’t quite fit, not his limp, not his fear of touch, not his pathetic need to assert himself, but, well… you have time. He’ll learn how to make himself fit into the space you provide him. He’ll become your Sun Summoner.”

“Have I told you yet that I’m going to kill that piece of shit?”

“You’ve mentioned it, once or twice. In the last hour.”

Jesper bares his teeth: a grin, but not. A promise. “Good. I’ll hold his mouth open while you stuff him full of black powder and set him on fire.”

“Stop stalling, Jesper. That won’t make it any easier.”

That won’t make it not have happened.

“If you’re sure this will help.”

Kaz nods.

“Lie down on the bed, then. Is there a—no, no pillows here, roll up the coat and slide it under your hips.” Jesper turns his face away, listening to the timid, stuttering squelches of Kaz stretching his asshole. Jesper doesn’t know what would be worse: if, after everything, he can’t get it up… or if he can.

Well. He’ll have to. His dick will just have to obey the dictates of the situation, just as Kaz’ body was made into the Sun Summoner. He’s young. He’s still looking at Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, naked, who asked Jesper to sleep with him, and that’ll have to be enough. They’ve gotten this far. They’ll force their way through. That’s how you do it. That’s how you gamble. How you lose big. Kaz might have once tried to explain to him something about sunk costs and throwing good money after bad, but Jesper ignored him that night and lost a hundred and twenty kruge to Specht, and he’s never looked back.

“Okay, Mr Sunshine. Let’s consummate our fucking partnership,” he grinds out when Kaz has gone quiet, takes the bottle to slick up his own uncooperative dick, and carefully, he climbs on top of Kaz. The clothes were a good decision: Kaz barely flinches when he kneels in-between his legs and pulls the sleeve over his hand to carefully guide his right knee to rest on Jesper’s thigh.

Kaz is staring up at his face, breathing, just breathing. The antlers in his collarbone frame his bright face—brighter than the candles should allow, like maybe—and his focus is rigid and he’s breathing, breathing quickly—

“Is this teaching you anything yet?”

“Not really,” Kaz rasps, after too long. “Or—I think—maybe it was—” he glances at Jesper’s pathetic, unhappy limp dick. His face twists. “I thought you were into me.”

This is— “I love you. Kaz Brekker, whoever you are. I don’t give a fuck about this Sun Summoner bullshit. I love you. I love you,” because this is—Jesper can’t do this. He can’t. His elbows are locked: he can’t drop his body any lower. He can't go lower than this. “I love you,” until it’s finally over. “I love you. I love you.”

☼

“And I’m telling you again, I don’t know what he does Tuesday evenings,” Jesper hisses.

“You were still with the Dregs, three months ago!” Kaz is wiping his cane clean. It didn’t even really get dirty—they mostly used kitchen knives to do the deed, and in the case of a maidservant who unwisely came to work in the middle of the night, a bullet that Jesper’s already collected and reshaped into something functional, because he might not get to buy new ones. Desperation. Frugality. The Kerch are rubbing off on him. It’s good, though. The fact he’s cleaning the wood is all the confirmation Jesper will likely ever get that Kaz does like the new cane Jesper made him from a cute straight rowan sapling, reinforced with the metal scavenged from all but the most essential buttons on their hodgepodge of clothes. At least there’s one thing of Jesper’s he values. “How can you not know the behavioural patterns of your boss? Are you that brainless?”

“No-one knew what he was up to! He barely came by the Slat. He wasn’t that interested in us.”

“You worked for Per Haskell, Jesper; you worked for that man for years—for nearly as many as I did, when you ran off to Ravka—and now you attempt to convince me you barely know his name?” Kaz still doesn’t look quite as harsh as he used to, or maybe that’s just Jesper hankering for their past. Well, he didn’t used to explain his plans to Jesper as if he was an imbecile—but then, he didn’t used to need Jesper. He had more stooges back then. Now, he only has one. Ally. Friend.

If it’s as weird for him, though, as it is for Jesper being back in Ketterdam after he didn’t die on his revenge suicide plot and the city didn’t, either—well, he might still get murdered for stealing the Sun Summoner or skipping out on debts or something completely unrelated, and Ketterdam’s… well, she’s weathering having her ruling class torn apart twice in short order, once by the Darkling’s conquest and now, by the slow collapse of the Darkling’s overstretched realm after he’s lost his saint/weapon/doll.

The Barrel’s fine—as glary and miserable as it ever was, anyway, but though Kaz would probably insist most of the Mercher’s Council had their hands in gang business one way or the other, their reach was indirect, mediated and secretive enough for the chaos tearing up the Geldstraat not to trickle down as quickly into the slums. And anyway, the involvement of the merchers only ever made life worse for most people. The plight of the rich can only be a blessing.

Right now, they’re inside a nice place in the Zelver district. Close enough to power to feel the death throes, and even disregarding the political manoeuvring and debris and panic everywhere, just looking at the house from the outside made Kaz twitchy, somehow.

His energy almost matched Jesper’s trigger finger.

It’s Haskell’s house, so that unease makes sense.

Haskell’s expensive secret new house far outside the Barrel that they’re despoiling now. They looked as out of place in the beautiful Zelver district as any Barrel rats, with their heads shorn close to the bone so they’ll look different enough to not get recognized and faces wiped with dirt, dressed in a melange of Ravkan clothes they haven’t found a chance to replace yet and tawdry Barrel flash for everything else.

Kaz was wearing two coats when he entered the house, an old rose and amber paisley trench that even Jesper admitted is hideous, though now it’s splattered with blood that actually really ties the colour scheme together. Still gross though, and luckily slung over the chair. Along with the purple kefta Kaz hid underneath, the one he still hasn’t given back. Or burned, which is what they did to the other Ravkan overcoats. On the streets his two coats bulked up his frame so much he looked like a kid that Jesper’s never met, dressed up to play a gangster’s role. He looked nothing like the Sun Summoner anymore, and only somewhat like Jesper’s imagined baby Dirtyhands crawling out straight from the harbour, fifty kilos sopping wet and ready to kill a man and feast on his entrails.

Now, he’s stripped down to a ruffled red shirt over a green undershirt—he conspicuously shunned the yellow one next to it on the washing line—and light blue pinstripe trousers. The shirt is a little large in the shoulders, and he’s cuffed the trousers. They stole everything from a cottage on the edge of Ketterdam. Not quite Barrel flash, but almost—alike in style but with better fabric, something a town edge kid probably bought to look like a cool gangster. Or something Jesper would have bought to look special for a very special date. If he squints, he can almost imagine—it’s the morning after, and—

Ever since the Little Palace the idea of Kaz naked has totally lost its lustre. The idea of his muscular but scrawny, scarred chest, his wiry tattooed arms, his ambiguously demonic hands—it’s all overlaid now with a flimsy ugly sleeveless yellow paper taffeta gown. With normal hands, kept bare as humiliation.

But maybe—maybe they sat together, not on a log in a forest but on a sofa this time, and then in the morning Kaz was cold and he stole all of Jesper’s clothes to wear over his own. That’s much better. (Maybe he just wanted Jesper naked all day…)

Jesper won’t let the Darkling steal his fantasies, too. They’re—

Ouch. Fucking ouch.

Jesper really shouldn’t have added tiny spiky worms to the side of the cane, but Kaz’ indignation was just too funny.

“Let me make this clear—” Kaz rasps, once he’s regained Jesper’s full attention. Half-full. ‘Like he’s plundered Jesper’s wardrobe’ is still such a good look on him. “We are both hunted. Neither of us can afford to be caught outside on the streets of Ketterdam and let whoever saw us live. If we’re going to make Haskell’s house our temporary base of operations, we need to make his death as inconspicuous as possible. We cannot safely anticipate which of his visitors to eliminate and which to fool unless we know whether they, in turn, may be missed.”

“Well,” Jesper mutters. “Mitki might come by. If the neighbours don’t chase him off.”

Kaz raises a single, dirt-encrusted eyebrow.

“Mitki’s the newest lieutenant. Might have made it this—”

“Not Anika? I can understand why a flake like you didn’t rise in the Dregs ranks, but she—”

“Ambush. Dime Lions, five weeks after you disappeared.”

“Rotty?”

“Slit throat. Still no clue who did it.”

“Specht? Pim? Neeta? Big Bol?”

“Razorgulls, knife, last year. Bullet to the head, same day. Hellgate. Hellgate.”

“Muzzen? Ruk? Keeg?”

“Another ‘Gull stabbing, just before I left. Hellgate, again. Keeg just disappeared, though. Might still be alive somewhere over the True Sea, if he’s clever. Not that he was, he’s probably floating, poor sod.” Jesper shrugs. After a while, it just gets too much: the beginning of the Dregs’ end is seared into his brain, but there aren’t enough synapses for the tenth—or fiftieth—dead friend to hurt as much. “There’s a reason why I didn’t think twice about running when I lost those fifty thousand. Like I said, boss, it’s been a shitshow since you left. Haskell never wanted for new ones, since he got his kids fresh off the street, but he just stopped giving any shit whatsoever, and since you weren’t there to pick up the slack… well, I can see why he didn’t care, now.”

Jesper spares a bitter look for the mountain of kruge next to Haskell’s foot, the mountain he offered Kaz as soon as he saw him, long before Kaz even tried to hack off both his hands and feet with a dull meat cleaver. Long before Kaz had to settle for cutting down to the bone and then wrenching Haskell’s extremities from their sockets by sheer force of hatred, while Jesper puked into the kitchen sink. The mountain he’d never have amassed as the boss of a gang as shambolic as the last years of the Dregs.

The mountain that’s going to pay off Inej’s indenture tomorrow.

Haskell allowed her to rot there. It’s only fair he pays for her freedom with his life.

“Everyone we could use is gone. And you…” Kaz tips Jesper’s chin up with his cane. The world shimmies a little. “You, of all the old Dregs, survived.”

Jesper shrugs again. This is too much to confess to Kaz, of all cruel bastards, probably far too much, but—they’re sitting in the living room of Jesper’s former boss, the man who sold Kaz out to the Darkling and used the prize money to live in luxury, while letting his gang die on increasingly pointless ill-planned errands. The other end of the table is still flecked and puddled with slow-drying blood—not to mention the corpse, or corpse-pieces, laying there—but over here, they have a bottle of expensive whisky they found in a cabinet and they’re trading swigs from the bottle, all bitter and clean.

“I didn’t take it too well, when you and Inej just disappeared, and then my friends kept dying. Might have gone on a couple of benders. Might have lost some games. Might have lost some fights. Might have had some sexual encounters with people who turned out to be massive creeps. Consequently, I may not have been technically around to be asked to go on some of these errands, or perhaps I just didn’t notice because I was drunk.”

“Jesper.” Kaz doesn’t even sound surprised. Wow. Thanks for having faith in me, boss.

It’s not really that humiliating, though, now he’s said it out loud. He spent two years making bad decisions and occasionally braiding Inej’s hair. Kaz spent that time getting turned into a doll. Who can say what’s worse? He takes another deep gulp and grins. “You know me, boss. I need some external structure in life. I really need a commandeering asshole dragging me into his schemes to be my best self.”

“And yet, you outwitted the Darkling.”

“That wasn’t difficult, to be fair. Tell them I’m Grisha, search the Little Palace, shoot Kaz Brekker in the head, get executed…” Jesper trails off. When the silence grows teeth, he takes a pull of whisky that’s so desperate it makes him cough, but Kaz is still letting him stew.

They don’t really need to talk about it, though. No value in going over what happened in the Little Palace. No value in discussing anything. Everything is fine now. Yes, Jesper did want to kill Kaz. Yes, he’ll die for Kaz.

And they both know why.

Kaz steals the bottle. It’s incredible, actually, Jesper was just holding it—well, maybe he’s a little more drunk than he thought, but Kaz would probably like being complimented on his pickpocketing. “I didn’t even see you steal that bottle,” Jesper says.

“I’d be angry you’re drunk,” Kaz rasps. “But you’ve been completely useless at all stages of the current plan so far. And the previous one, by your planning—I always forget, in my amazement at what you accomplished, that you failed.”

He says that, but his cheeks are flushed pink with alcohol. His pupils are wide when he looks at Jesper. He raises the bottle to his lips and tips his head back, swallowing what should have easily been ten more swigs of whisky. Thieving bastard.

☼

When Jesper awakes on Haskell’s second softest chaise longue in the receiving room—neither of them was particularly eager to climb into Haskell’s bed, and, in Jesper’s case, not particularly still able to walk up the stairs either—his mouth is dry, his bladder full and the light is poking his brain even through closed curtains and eyelids. And Kaz—he searches the whole house after finishing his business, but yes, it’s true—Kaz is gone.

So are his cane and his current Barrel flash coat and the kefta, which means Kaz is probably safe. Well. As safe as the escaped Sun Summoner can be. Not kidnapped, at least. More alive than anyone stupid enough to cross Kaz’ path.

He’s taken Haskell’s kruge, and left a note.

In Kaz’ sharp hand, the note reads, “STAY.”

It’s underlined three times, and on the back side Kaz has written, “or you will die,” which to be fair is pretty ambiguous.

‘Die’ as in, ‘I mistrust your competence and assume you’ll get yourself killed if you move a finger?’ Or as in, ‘I’m warning you I won’t go out of my way to save you?’ Perhaps it’s a straightforward ‘Disobey and I am going to personally murder you and piss on your corpse?’ All are very real possibilities, knowing Kaz.

To really understand the message, Jesper needs to get into Kaz’ mood when he woke up—hungover, but how much? Enough he hates the entire world, or so much he hates Jesper more? Also, his current way of thinking. Jesper’s usefulness. A point in favour is the fact that Jesper saved him from a fate worse than death, but on the other hand, Jesper forgot to extract a deal from him and Kaz is so Kerch it hurts, which means he’s pared down solidarity and reciprocity and love into exchange, into deals, and all Jesper’s offering are the first three. They shared a bottle of whisky next to the corpse of their old boss, though, and in general Kaz looked like he was having fun more than once on their dirty, miserable long trek out of Ravka. Way more fun than he had in the majestic Little Palace. Also, Jesper’s incredibly likeable. He’s beautiful and funny and stupidly in love with Kaz without asking anything in return, so really it only makes sense that Kaz has finally succumbed to his charm.

(He dug his hand into Jesper’s hair, that night on the fallen tree and twice afterwards, but—maybe that was only to make Jesper squirm.)

Well, he enjoyed Jesper’s company while they fled from Ravka to Ketterdam, at least. That’s the crux of it.

So why would Kaz anticipate that Jesper might want to run anywhere? There’s a well-stocked kitchen here. A far more sensible assumption would be that Jesper might want to make some waffles or go on a morning jog. No, not that one. Enjoy a lavish breakfast. Have a bath, perhaps, after spending two weeks crawling through the Ravkan forest and the Shu countryside and stowed in the belly of a wine cargo ship and then countryside again, this time Kerch. Jesper’s feet hurt just thinking about it, and that Kaz managed to get here, even at the half-speed they settled on, speaks to—well, the same bull-headed masochism as always, but the fact he still refused to even consider stealing a cart or horse or approach any larger settlement before Ketterdam means he must be even more terrified of the Darkling than Jesper can imagine. He refused to leave any trace whatsoever. (And yet he’s back in Ketterdam, the one city in the world he was connected to before the Little Palace, because…?)

Ketterdam is the only city, village, collection of buildings and people they’ve been to for weeks, which means it’s the first chance Jesper has to gamble, but—even he knows not to stake anything on the possibility there’s someone left in the Barrel who doesn’t know about Jesper Fahey, he who owes Pekka Rollins fifty thousand kruge and just skipped town, kill immediately with extreme prejudice.

Well, Rollins is dead now—the only gang boss courageous or aggrieved or hungry enough to try and covertly resist the Darkling, go figure—but whoever’s head Lion now probably won’t even let Jesper try to spin an argument about how he really owes that money to ‘Pekka Rollins’ Dime Lions’, not any successor organizations. No such luck, and anyway, people stupid enough to bounce on their debts are fair game to any gang in the Barrel. They don’t cooperate on much, not even for mutual benefit, but murdering dishonest gamblers? That’s a team sport.

Jesper’s last recklessly suicidal plan worked out fantastic, so maybe he should find a card table. His luck’s turned. He could win millions.

Which Kaz definitely would anticipate, and warn him away from. Kaz is a buzzkill. Just because Jesper’s going to get murdered on sight in the Barrel…

Because Jesper’s gonna get murdered on sight in the Barrel.

If Kaz wants to rebuild his status in the Barrel, there’s no bigger liability than Jesper. And Kaz wants to, surely. He worked his way up inside the Dregs carefully and diligently, spent more time than anyone sane would inside a tiny attic office adding up numbers, and sucked up to an utter piece of shit like Haskell, just so he could one day become a Barrel boss. And now, to rise again, he has to cut off the dead weight.

Which means Jesper.

That’s why he left.

It’s not even a betrayal. They don’t have an agreement for life after reaching Ketterdam, let alone one that says Jesper can follow him forever and ever just like in the good old days. Inej—but Inej’s actually useful to a new Barrel boss, as soon as her indenture’s paid. Jesper’s the weak link here. Jesper’s screwed.

Which doesn’t mean he won’t go down fighting. He knows the way to the Menagerie—the quickest way, the scenic route, the paths least commonly trafficked by Pigeons and the ones usually avoided by staadwatch or gangsters. He knows Kaz well enough to guess which one he’s taken. If he hasn’t woken too late—and by the sun’s position, it’s still early in the morning—then he has a chance to pass Kaz off and… insult him? Beg? Cry? Sell his father’s soul for a position in the new Dregs? Maybe he’ll just have to wear a Komedie Brute mask for the rest of his life and it’ll be fine. He’ll figure it out later.

Jesper draws his shoulders up to his ears while he scurries through empty alleyways, the collar of his fancy pseudo-Barrel flash coat turned up. He’s almost glad that Kaz made him go hatless and shaved bald—thoroughly unstylish and un-Jesper enough he might survive the morning—but there are drawbacks to the disguise in the damp chill.

Also, the disguise isn’t good enough. After some minutes, Jesper notices that some clusters of metal stay at roughly the same distance to him. Eight clusters of—round, small, definitely mostly kruge with a few Ravkan coins thrown in. Thirteen guns. A rifle. Two of the coin clusters are fairly close together and move in unison. Jesper’s dealing with seven shadows, then.

That’s—a lot.

Jesper’s had a little more training being a Durast now, but what he could really use now is combat training. He hasn’t even been in a battle in over a month, unless you count handing Kaz knives while he carves up Per Haskell, and since Jesper had to puke right after, you probably shouldn’t. He’s fought rabbits. Jesper’s sure fought some rabbits in Ravka. Two deer, too.

He could probably escape his pursuers. It would take time, though, time Jesper doesn’t have when Kaz is leaving him behind without a word. He’ll just have to kill them quickly.

At least there’s one of his favourite surveillance detection routes nearby. One of the rare aboveground tunnels in Ketterdam, not used by Pigeons for obvious reasons of creepiness and also because it just leads to a big courtyard behind a factory: a courtyard that’s easy to escape, when you know the gate’s lock is broken. Kaz showed it to him, just weeks after Jesper got recruited, after the second time the ‘Gulls got the drop on him and beat him to a pulp. In the courtyard, he made Jesper shoot some sparrows and some pigeons to prove his worth. Not crows, though, and for a year Jesper believed that detail was just thrown in to test whether Jesper would obey nonsensical orders. It’s still a plausible explanation.

He’ll just have to ask Kaz, after he begs him for a role in the new Dregs. After he kills these seven pursuers.

If.

He catches the first man off-guard and blows his head off when he exits the tunnel, but after that, it’s a stand-off. Jesper, hiding behind a massive wood barrel for cover, against six men ducked into the mouth of the tunnel.

Jesper manages to pick off another man by firing into the tunnel and blindly redirecting the bullet into the first nook, but the second attempt at using that trick doesn’t hit anything, and neither does the third. He has eight bullets left now, and five enemies. Even Jesper can tell that’s bad odds.

Retreating across the courtyard, though—the first few meters are fine, there are enough wine barrels and he can just dash from one to another, slightly nudging bullets off their course so none hit him.

Those guys have far too many bullets left, though, by the time Jesper’s forty meters away from the gate. Forty meters without cover. His pursuers aren’t bad shots either—likely Dime Lions, because there’s no way a Liddy would ever get so close that Jesper has to redirect their bullet—and they’re cautious enough that only two of them are crouched behind that barrel next to the tunnel, now, while the rest are still hidden inside.

This might get a little tough—but if Jesper starts manipulating bullets more obviously, will that information travel to the Little Palace? They know the Sun Summoner escaped with a Fabrikator. Is he painting a target on Kaz’ back?

Is he—

Bloodcurdling screams and groans, and Jesper’s too far away to hear any thwacks but his senses have expanded and he knows that metal coating intimately. Knows that cane.

Kaz emerges from the tunnel opening, Inej behind him, and—

Boom.

The Dime Lion’s shot him.

Right in the chest, and Kaz stumbles, falls to his knees.

Keels over.

Jesper shoots wildly while he runs over, whirling the bullets around the barrel that the Dime Lions are hiding behind—two left, Kaz wouldn’t have let any of the ones in the tunnel escape—desperate to hit something or at least keep them distracted and scared long enough to get there, or for—Inej’s pulling Kaz back by his coat, and she’s still wearing a sheer Menagerie dress, she probably doesn’t have any knives to protect—nothing’s hit yet, nothing’s hit, and all Jesper’s bullets are in the air whizzing around but he’s not hitting anything and Kaz is down and Kaz—

Kaz pushes himself to his knees, and then he stands up.

He’s breathing hard, and in the ugly rose/amber/bloodstain trench there’s a hole above his heart, sooty and burnt, but he’s still alive, Kaz is alive, he’s—

“What are you?” a Dime Lion gasps. Jesper’s finally got a bead on her. He sinks three bullets into her head.

“I just killed…” The other one is less lucky, and Jesper only manages to hit his stomach before he runs out of airborne bullets. He’ll die, but it won’t be quick.

“I crawled out of the harbour before. I’ll do it again,” Kaz rasps, and before the Dime Lion manages more than “Dirty—” a wet squelch informs Jesper of his demise.

That’s all of them.

“Kaz, you—” Inej’s much quicker at Kaz’ side, but he moves away before she can touch him to check his injury. Moves quickly enough he’s probably not on death’s door. He is a good actor, though. She looks at Jesper, and he’s about to join her in begging Kaz to get some medical aid, at least, but then Kaz shrugs off the ruined trench coat.

“Those kefta aren’t entirely useless,” Kaz rasps, grinning like an amused fucking asshole who almost gave Jesper a heart attack.

And then, Inej wraps herself around Jesper.

“You’re alive! I was terrified,” she shouts against his chest, slapping his back and grabbing as if she can’t decide whether to kill Jesper or never let go. “I thought you got yourself killed! You just disappeared, no word, I thought—”

“I may have lost a game where the stake was fifty thousand kruge?”

“You—Jes—” Inej squeezes him harder. “I told you to stop. I’d rather have you, with me, than have you die trying to pay me off.”

“I almost won! But there was no chance I’d get out of it, without indenturing myself, and—it all worked out, didn’t it? You’re free! Which reminds me…” Jesper takes off his own coat—blue and green and purple wave patterns, very fancy, a bit on the small side for him—and lays it onto Inej’s shoulders. It suits her, too—it drowns her a little, sure, but the way the coat reaches down to her ankles looks regal, and anyway, Kaz is a good sewer. He’ll fix this. “Can’t have you catching a cold.”

Before she can reply—tell him again she wasn’t worth risking his life and freedom in every card game he could for two years, when she definitely is, she’s Inej, he’ll do anything for her—he runs away and searches the dead Dime Lions for a new coat for himself, all their money, the rifle, and picks up the used bullets too. Knowing Kaz, he’ll want them to leave this place soon, and Jesper can’t very well try to convince his boss he needs to keep his sharpshooter around when he has no bullets left.

Speaking of—Jesper saunters over to Kaz when he’s done. With his most careless grin, he says, “I want my goodbye kiss before you ditch me.”

“I left you a note,” Kaz rasps. “I should have remembered you can’t read.”

Which as good as counts as a promise that Kaz didn’t intend to leave him behind: that, and the adrenaline of an easy gunfight has Jesper grinning widely. This is the life he wanted. The life he yearned for during the last two miserable years. The Crows are back, baby. He asks, “What now, boss?”

“We leave. Before anyone comes to investigate those gunshots.”

“Novyi Zem?”

“No,” Kaz rasps, just as Inej says, “They’ll let us drown.”

“They what?”

“Move.” Kaz starts limping past the factory, and then doubles back one street over—in the general direction away from the sea. Jesper and Inej quickly flank him. “I went to the Fifth Harbour before I paid off Inej’s indenture. It’s near empty. Old man there said no boats go to Novyi Zem or Eames Chin right now, and no boats come back. Because nothing gets unloaded. Kerch ships can’t dock there. They all get stranded at sea.”

“People started running when Ravka cut us off from the continent,” Inej mutters. “Before the invasion. And now the Darkling’s gone, the Kerch Grisha are either running or dead.”

“Too many refugees, apparently. Something about culture and scroungers and economic migrants. Novya Zem’s closed its ports to Kerch.”

“But I’m Zemeni—”

“You’re just a person. Those borders don’t exist to help you. The harbour watch don’t exist for you, the government doesn’t exist for you—if there’s a choice between cementing their power and your life, every bureaucrat worth their salt will choose the former.”

Jesper wants to argue, but actually, he’d trust Kaz over Novyi Zem a million times. Kaz saved his life when Ketterdam and Kerch would have swallowed him whole. Novyi Zem isn’t any different. “So we’re stuck in Ketterdam, then, where I’ll get shot on sight and you’ll easily get tracked by the Darkling. I only remember one safehouse that’s still uncompromised, as of last month anyway, unless you think we should go back to Haskell’s, boss?”

“Inej,” Kaz rasps. “That shop over there. Buy us a cart. We’re going to Lij.”

“What’s in Lij, boss? Why Lij? Where is Lij, anyway?”

But Kaz doesn’t answer him. Even aboard the cart, directing their new donkey with a seemingly perfect grasp of the roads leading to a small southern Kerch town none of them have ever been to, he refuses to elaborate. He looks tense, though. Jesper reshapes his many new bullets while he walks alongside. If there’s a fight waiting for them in Lij, they’re going to win.

☼

Kaz paces the length of the room. Window, door, window, door—there’s not much space beside the marriage bed, and the air draft of his passing caresses Jesper’s shorn head.

He’s put back together now, dressed in his socks and his boots and his underpants and his trousers and his gloves, though his torso’s only covered by the open purple kefta. Despite the cane, he limps more heavily than before he trekked for weeks through the Ravkan forest. He’s not fully recovered yet, if he’ll ever be.

Jesper’s on the floor. He climbed off the bed—off Kaz, after he ruined Kaz’ stupid get proxy-raped by the proxy-Darkling again plan. He said what he said, and the silence that followed was all the answer he’ll get, and then he sat down on the floor. It’s as good a place to wait as any. Probably more hygienic than the bed, anyway. He watched Kaz dress, until he almost looked like the Barrel lieutenant they both wish he was still allowed to be, and now he’s watching Kaz Brekker Dirtyhands the Sun Summoner pace holes in the old dusty floor of an abandoned farmhouse an hour’s walk outside of the small Kerch town of Lij.

He’s not getting murdered, though. Not for what he almost did. Not for what he said. That’s as good as this was ever going to go.

“It was worse this time.” Kaz directs his rasp towards the floor. He doesn’t stop moving. “I froze. Why was it—it was you. I knew you were—you’d never—with you it should have been more tolerable. Not worse.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, boss.” Jesper still can’t decide whether he should be ashamed that he was too squeamish to go through with it. Kaz doesn’t seem as angry as he could be, that Jesper totally fucked up this whatever-it-was-supposed-to-be. Not the mocking disappointment he doles out at Jesper’s predictable failures—gambling, distractibility, lateness, no impulse control and so on—and not the seething hatred when Jesper does something he hasn’t anticipated.

“I turned it over and over in my mind. For a year. What I did wrong. How I could have turned this to my advantage. How to excise this weakness. I thought I’d found—but there’s nothing.”

Jesper would offer to brutally desecrate the Darkling’s corpse again, but it clearly doesn’t help. Kaz won’t let this go. Never mind that he was a teenage thief imprisoned in a palace. Never mind it was him against the whole entourage of the most powerful Grisha. The man who crowned himself Emperor.

Sometimes you’re just fucked. And there’s nothing you can do. Life isn’t fair.

“There is a way to beat him,” Kaz hisses. “And I will find it.”

“You did. Sort of.”

“What—”

Jesper grins a shark-grin. “You’re not in Ravka now, are you?”

“That doesn’t count.”

“Why doesn’t it? No, boss, listen—he didn’t beat you alone, either, right? He had his Tailor making you into a doll. His Fabrikators locking your cage. His soldiers. Hell, Haskell selling you out—so really, it’s your victory that I found you.” Now that Jesper’s trying to explain his gut reaction, it just seems more and more logical. “Why can’t you have your own gang? You practically rescued yourself. You took a look at a boy who’d have gotten shot in a few weeks because he couldn’t pay is debts and he couldn’t stop fucking gambling—you had me dragged up to your office. You took that chance. You saved my life so I could save yours. That’s… planning ahead. Planning years ahead. Well done.”

Kaz finally, finally stops pacing. He sinks into the mattress just slightly to the right of Jesper, so he can sprawl out his legs without making contact. He looks at Jesper, but he’s silent, and his face isn’t giving anything away.

At first, that makes it feel like he’s actually listening. Actually considering what Jesper told him, and agreeing. Kaz is a quick thinker, though. He doesn’t need this long to realize that Jesper’s correct, which means he’s coming up with counterarguments—arguments why actually, he’s still weak or whatever and needs to force himself—and Jesper really, really can’t watch him do this to himself again. Why this, anyway? Why is this the weakness he fixated on?

“Why is that creep so obsessed with making you touch people, anyway?”

“Because it’s easy. Necessary. Even a child does it. Touch is what makes us human, and the Sun Summoner is human, whatever lies he tells himself,” Kaz recites. His eyes are bright. Wet.

“Bullshit. You terrorized the Barrel for years and it didn’t matter at all that you never touched anyone. It was just you. It didn’t even really sink in for me, that you don’t touch people, until I saw the way he dressed you up, how miserable you were.” That’s probably a good place to leave it, but Jesper’s livid. Jesper could mince and mangle fifty Darklings with the pure force of his loathing, and there’s not even a single one around here. That energy has to go somewhere. “You’re trying to tell me the Ravkan fucking palace couldn’t change protocol a little and adapt? If it never mattered in the Barrel, it never mattered at all. He just picked something. If you’d been allergic to shellfish, that’s the only food he would have served you, and he would have said you’re weak for your windpipe swelling up. He wasn’t able control you because touch made you weak. When you’re in control, it doesn’t matter. Because you fucking kill whoever touches you. You don’t bow to them. They bow to you.”

Kaz doesn’t reply. He doesn’t look away from Jesper, though. He just stares down at him, with his eyes still wide and still wet. He mutters, “You’ve turned quite opinionated in my absence, Jesper.”

“In your presence. I’m quoting your words back to you—sort of, it was about the cane, and I’ve forgotten half of it. But you were right. You were always right.” Jesper laughs. “See? Now you’re teaching yourself through time and space! Your masterplan is incredibly fucking elaborate!”

“My—I’m not falling for it.” Kaz is grinning, though. “If I agree now—by this time tomorrow you’ll have done something incredibly stupid and you’ll throw the whole Everything I do is your triumph because you saved me thing in my face. I’m not responsible for your awful jokes!”

Pretending to wipe tears from his eyes, Jesper wails, “My plan! My ingenious plan! Foiled by the dastardly Dirtyhands, oh no!”

Kaz laughs at him. Kaz laughs, and laughs, and Jesper joins him.

It takes a while before Kaz stops, gasping for breath. No-one in Ravka’s ever told a good joke, Jesper decides, because he’s made way funnier jokes before that Kaz didn’t even chuckle at, but gift horses and mouths and so on. Colour’s returned to Kaz’ face: his cheeks are blotchy and red, even after his breathing’s evened out. Kaz mumbles, “You know, that’s exactly how I imagined it.”

What? Oh. Jesper’s sprawled on the floor, leaning back on his elbows, his shirt pulled out of his trousers—his trousers, which are open, and he still hasn’t tucked away his dick. He forgot. There were more far important things to do, and now… well, he probably looks more debauched than Kaz in his purple kefta, with just his prick exposed to the chilly night-time Kerch air while he lounges on the ground. He ghosts a finger over it.

“Do you want me to—do you want to watch, boss?”

“I’d—” Kaz swallows. “Saints.”

Jesper turns a little, so Kaz can get a better view. He doesn’t undress, in case that’s an integral part of the fantasy, just gently trails his fingers down his still-limp dick—though it’s definitely waking up now—and looks up at Kaz.

Kaz doesn’t meet his eyes anymore, but that’s fine: more than fine, when he’s alternately looking at Jesper’s cock and at Jesper’s lips. Jesper darts out his tongue, and Kaz’ pupils blow even wider. Jesper licks down his palm and starts jerking off in earnest. “Hey, boss,” Jesper mutters, and when the head jerks up Jesper blows him a tiny kiss.

“What do you think about?” Kaz rasps.

“I just look at you. That’s enough. I like your face.” The tiny quirk of his lips, the way his eyes dart back down. “What are you thinking about, boss?”

“I didn’t expect you to enjoy this as much.”

“Seriously, boss, I know you’re not that stupid. How many times—”

“Not me,” Kaz mumbles. He gestures obscurely at the room. Jesper. The wall. The floor. The floor again. “This. It’s—not proper. Demeaning.”

“I wasn’t feeling demeaned until you started talking—”

“I was going to make you my right hand, once I took over the Dregs. Not my whore—”

“You were?” slips out, small and breathless, before Jesper remembers that this is for Kaz. This for him to enjoy. The warmth expanding in Jesper’s ribcage can wait. “There’s nothing bad about this. You like it. I like it. I don’t see anyone else in this room, and even if—a very clever guy once told me that you don’t bow to the world. You make the world bow to you.”

☼

It’s scratching that wakes Jesper. Scratching like the sharpening of a knife, quick, impatient, desperate—but it’s Kaz who’s on watch right now, Kaz who found this shallow cave they’re spending the night in, and Kaz wouldn’t let any danger come this close unnoticed. Unfought. Kaz wouldn’t just leave Jesper to his fate—would he?

He wouldn’t. At least not yet.

Kaz is sitting at the mouth of the cave. The moon drenches his matted dirty hair in its white glory, his handmade trousers, his naked wiry chest. His chest which he hasn’t bared for a second since Jesper gave him the kefta, even pulling off the Sun Summoner chemise that they tore into threads while still wrapped up in both of his coats: but now he’s half-naked, head bending down to look at those tines sticking out of his clavicle. Those antlers, those keratinized tumours, those bone cancers. Whatever those mutations are, he wants them gone.

In the right hand, he’s holding the knife that Jesper made from buttons so they could cut the blanket into trouser-shapes. In the left hand, he’s holding one of the protrusions growing from his body.

And then, he starts hacking again.

Viciously, helplessly, like a sick rabbit mutated into its own trap. He misses, once, and the knife sinks into his collarbone: but silently he tears it out again and cuts at the cancerous bone, and the knife’s sharp but the only dents that Jesper can see are tiny, glowing, lighting up the knife that’s flecked with his own blood.

☼

Jesper stirs the potato chunks. Thankfully, the old hearth still works, at least after he and Inej fed it with firewood they brought from the market, and so he’s cooking potatoes in butter and water. He mashes them up with some heavy wooden implement he found in a cabinet, once they’re soft enough—he washed it of course; he doesn’t want to eat moth shit—and then Inej passes him a wooden board of carrots in neat small identical pieces. Show-off. Jesper loves her so fucking much.

“Careful, don’t let it burn,” she says, twirling her knife, and Jesper—well, he meant to stir the pot of what’s apparently becoming stamppot. He did. He didn’t mean to think of how he’ll get Inej and Kaz out of Ravka—

And that’s when Kaz limps into the kitchen. He wasn’t still asleep when Inej and Jesper went into town to get some food—as if the Bastard of the Barrel ever sleeps in, even when he’s far from his titular Barrel—but he begged off the trip. He told them to say they’re working for Johannus Rietveld, if they’re asked, who’s apparently inherited this farm, but—they weren’t asked a thing, anyway, and who knows what Kaz did in the meantime. Who knows what weird cover identity he’s cooked up that they haven’t yet had to invoke. And whether it’s weirder than the one Jesper just created.

Jesper gives him a tender little smile. “Had a good morning?”

“No.”

“Because of last—”

But Kaz can read Jesper at least as well as he can read himself. “Don’t flatter yourself,” he rasps. “You’re the least terrifying person I’ve ever met.” Which probably means Yes, I’m rattled, but I won’t take it out on you. Too much.

“Thanks, darling.” And obeying Inej’s sharp elbow, he goes back to stirring the potato mash, and the slices of rookworst smoked sausage she’s dumped into another pan as well. “We decided Inej needs a proper homecooked meal, now she’s free, and we both haven’t eaten anything worth eating for ages, either.”

“You cook?”

“I grew up with my Da. It was either him or me. We traded off, if you want to know, and I’m pretty good apart from when it mysteriously turns into charcoal. And we didn’t find any Zemeni spices in the Lij market—this isn’t Ketterdam, and this old trader I talked to, she said it’s because maritime traffic to Novyi Zem is down to trickles at this point there’s a real dearth of spices, she couldn’t get them at any reasonable price—”

“Don’t burn the stamppot,” Inej orders.

“Anyway, we found a recipe tacked to the wall behind the oven, so that’s what I’m making now. Something super Kerch. Stamppot—you’ve ever eaten it?”

Kaz makes a sound that’s deeply indecipherable. Jesper can’t even tell whether it’s mournful or happy.

“Anyway, we’re almost done. Spinach now, please—Inej made me stick to the recipe, you know—and then the fried sausage and some salt and… you’ll stay with us for lunch, right, even if it isn’t royal Little Palace fare?”

“We ate unseasoned burnt rabbits in the forest,” Kaz replies curtly. He’s gotten over whatever strange emotion took hold of him, then.

“Yeowtch, they were awful. Why didn’t you remind me to take them off the fire. I know how to smuggle us into Novyi Zem,” Jesper says, carrying the deep pot over to their chosen clean bit of floor. Next to the windowsill, so Kaz can sit down with a little less discomfort—the house has been cleaned out apart from the marriage bed, really, and making Kaz go in there now… Making Inej go in there now, when it’s where last night he and Kaz had sex… And it’s not like they were loud, but who knows what Inej read into them pacing around each other for an hour. This is much less awkward. Besides, Jesper’s recently had some great experiences with floors.

Inej doesn’t stop playing with her knife, even after she balances her stamppot served on woodboard on her knees and digs in with her slightly bent spoon. She hasn’t set it down all morning, even carried it into town when they went looking for something to eat, and while she’s been supervising Jesper’s cooking—making sure he’s reading the recipe, keeping him on-track, bickering with him over unclear or illegible instructions—she’s been twirling it around her fingers. A truly remarkable feat, given that it’s the piece of shit knife that Jesper cobbled together from coat buttons, and he didn’t know what he was doing at all except that it should probably be sharp. Inej really needs to talk him through the finer points of balance if she wants him to overhaul the thing.

“They’re not letting in any more refugees from Kerch, you said,” Jesper starts setting up the explanation for his ingenious plan, while he passes over Kaz’ portion and another spoon he dug out from the bottom of a cabinet and small-scienced back into shape.

“The rich Kerch started running first, when the Darkling advanced. Anyone who’d ever had a Grisha indenture… They probably got in. They had the money. As for the rest… well, we’ve all heard of what happened in Fjerda, unless we’re Jesper and too busy drinking and playing Makker’s Wheel—”

“Hey! I was trying to pay off your indenture,” Jesper complains, while nibbling on his surprisingly decent if underspiced potato mash. “I’m Zemeni. They’ll let me in.”

Kaz still hasn’t touched his food. He hasn’t put it away either though, hand cradling the board instead of throwing it at Jesper. Maybe it’s because he’s too curious about the plan. Jesper should have waited, but he was too excited, and now Kaz is frowning as he replies, “So you keep saying. How does that help us? I assume you wouldn’t leave the two of us behind, after all that trouble you took.”

It feels good, to hear him say that. Almost good enough to forgive that Kaz doesn’t like his lunch. “That’s where my plan comes in. I’ve finally figured it out. If we’re married—”

“We can’t marry each other,” Kaz rasps. Before Jesper gets too sad about that, he continues, “In case you haven’t yet learned to count, we’re three people now.”

“I know. That’s why I’ve been thinking it over for so long. But divorce exists, you know so I was thinking that our story should be—and I’ll write to Da, but I thought you should probably agree first—I married one of you and then fell in love with the other but I still loved both, so I was trying to—”

Inej coughs. Laughs. Yeah, she’s definitely laughing at him, and then she says, “You’re going to tell your father about your marriage in a letter—your multiple marriages, because not only did you get married without inviting him, you already traded in your wife for a younger, prettier model. You lothario!”

“If you think that Kaz—actually, are you younger than Inej?”

Kaz, spoon in mouth, glares down at him.

“I’m trying to save our lives here. I’d appreciate some cooperation! And Da will forgive me, when he sees how happy I am with my new bonebreaking gangster wife and my old knife-twirling gangster wife who I had to divorce for petty bureaucratic reasons. Do you like it?”

Another spoonful of stamppot disappears into Kaz’ mouth. His eyes are closed while he chews, and then he looks away. His voice is hoarser than normal when he mumbles, “It tastes exactly the way I—it’s good.”

“Better than unseasoned rabbit charcoal. Anyway, it might throw the Darkling off our scent some more, if we disguise Kaz as a woman—and don’t be sexist. Women come in all shapes and sizes, no-one’s going to suspect a thing. Also we’re from Ketterdam. If any woman like Kaz can marry anywhere, it’s here. It’ll be a scandal, if they refuse to honour our marriage. Letting a few poors drown outside Zemeni borders, sure, but breaking the mutual recognition of administrative documents?”

Jesper is actually pretty proud of his reasoning here. That makes it even more annoying when Kaz rasps, “No-one will ever believe I’m your wife. I can’t even touch you.”

“No-one’s going to believe I love you? Are you sure?” Jesper flutters his eyes up at Kaz.

“He has a point, Jesper. You won’t be the first desperate refugee forging a marriage to leave.” Inej twirls her knife again. “You’ll need to act the part.”

“We’ll just tell them the truth.”

“Which is?”

“You don’t want to be touched, and if they have a follow-up question, they’d better direct it to the barrel of my gun. I’m not letting anybody non-consensually grope my beloved Kerch wife. Never again. Not over my dead body.”

“Won’t they think it’s weird if Kaz—sorry, your beautiful Kerch wife doesn’t let you touch him?”

“I don’t care. I told you. Let the world bow to us. I love my ingenious, vicious Kerch wife, completely independent of any physical contact we may or may not ever have. I respect my stubborn loyal deadpan Kerch wife far too much to cross those boundaries just for social custom. Also, my sweet murderous Kerch wife has a mean right hook.”

“Thankyou for the demonstration of your acting skills,” Kaz rasps drily, scratching his spoon on his serving board for the last flecks of stamppot. “We’re not going to Novyi Zem, though. There are more amplifiers than just the Stag he forced into me, and we’re going to find the rest. I’m going to tear apart every miserable molecule in the Darkling’s body, cell by fucking cell.”

“And you just let me keep talking?”

“It was entertaining.” Kaz licks his spoon, and then the board. Any second now, Jesper will tell him there’s more left in the pot. “Write your Da. We’ll keep your plan as a backup, in case everything goes horribly wrong. You’ll need a ring, though, to make it official,” and Kaz starts rooting through the kefta pockets.

Jesper can’t breathe. Is Kaz really…? He can’t breathe until he looks at Kaz’ stretched-out, gloved hand, and—

“How the fuck did you steal that one?! I was just wearing it!”

[kiwi-muses]

Four Days Without Electricity

Another little writing prompt because I am straight up Kanej obsessed.

Prompt: Four Days Without Electricity

Subject: Six of Crows

Four days. Four incredibly long, tiring, frustrating days punctuated by the lack of electricity. The details were still scarce, but something had happened to knock out electricity to the entire city, resulting in the longest black out Ketterdam had ever experienced. The entire affair was bad for business. No pigeons wanted to come to the Crow Club and gamble by candle light, meaning most everyone stayed home unless it was full day outside. Of course, even in full day, the Crow Club was empty. After all, who puts windows in a gambling hall?

The entire business had, naturally, left Kaz in a foul mood. Everyone in the Dregs was actively avoiding him after day two when it looked like no solution was forthcoming. It didn’t help matters that Inej had been gone for nigh on six months on her first real trip on the True Sea. No one spoke of it, of course, but it was common knowledge that the longer Inej was gone with no word, the fouler Kaz’s temper became. Even Wylan and Jesper hadn’t heard from Inej. However, they were hopeful she’d be coming back soon. The weather on the sea got questionable as fall faded into winter, so more often than not ships docked for the season unless they had enough kruge to afford Squallers and Tidemakers alike.

Kaz made his way up to his room. Night had fallen, and while the Crow Club wasn’t busy due to the outage, he could still do some work by candlelight. He opened his door, and took in his room. It looked the same. He generally used Per Haskell’s old office, but when he wanted peace and quiet he came up to his old quarters. There was something relaxing (though Kaz would never admit it) about the old door propped up by fruit crates that served as his desk. Kaz made his way to the desk and propped his cane up against it, moving to remove his jacket and loosen his tie. He looked through the papers on his desk, hoping to see some sort of letter from Inej. Truth be told, he missed her. He missed the steadiness he came to rely on from her, her quiet presence, the way she always knew what to do next in one of his schemes. The Dregs weren’t as efficient without her. He sat at his desk. If he were being honest with himself, he was beginning to worry about her. He looked out the window towards the harbor. “You’d better not have gotten yourself sunk, Wraith,” he muttered, turning back to his desk to begin the night’s work.

He didn’t get far, only scratching down a few sums, when he heard something that set his heart flying into his throat. “Thankfully, I did all the sinking on the sea.” He raised his eyes but didn’t dare turn towards the window, wondering if he had just imagined her reply the way he had imagined her before over these last months. “Although, it’s good to know you might have missed me even just a little.” Now that he definitely didn’t imagine. He turned, and saw her crouched in the window like no time had passed at all. It had, of course, and he could tell. Her posture was more confident, she was wearing a smirk, and her eyes were bright and less troubled than when she had last been in Ketterdam.

[trulivin]

On the Job

Golden Eyes Part 2 | Part 1

A/N: SURPRISE SURPRISE. Here it is! (Finally). One down, seven more to go. Sorry it’s taken so long, but I hope you enjoy this! As always, send feedback! Enjoy! I figured you guys would like this better than another update. I got a lot of this done last night so I did my finishing touches tonight. Hopefully I caught all of my mistakes! 

Also I’m thinking about doing a tag list for whenever I post imagines? Lemme know what you think.

P.S Let me know if the link works for Part 1. My computer is being janky right now. 

Kaz Brekker x Reader, Six of Crows

Warnings: Slight abuse, cursing 

*Hopefully my gif works this time*

Y/N went straight to Jesper after she left Kaz’s room. “Well hello there Ms. Sharpshooter,” Jesper bowed, jokingly as she approached. Y/N shot him a grin before asking, “So Kaz says you have a job to do and I was wondering if I could tag along?” Jesper thought for a moment, but the mischievous look on his face told her she was already allowed. 

“Hmm? Let’s see you could take anyone’s eyes out in a moment or shoot them in the head. I think you can,” Jesper replied. “Besides, we need someone to draw our target out anyways. And with those golden eyes of yours I think you can do it.” 

Y/N’s face faltered a bit, but she nodded refusing to let the idea of playing the seductress ruin this. “Great so I’ll come get you tomorrow and fill you in before we go,” Jesper smiled before heading off to the Crow Club. “Awesome,” Y/N muttered, sulking again. Of course it had to be this type of job, she thought to herself. 

“There’s the girl I was looking for!” Inej exclaimed, dancing gracefully over to Y/N, snapping her out of her thoughts. Y/N gave her a small smile and Inej’s face dropped. “What now?” she asked. “Nothing,” Y/N said as innocently as she could. “Bullshit,” Inej pursed her lips. “Nothing I swear! Kaz finally let me go on my first job with Jesper,” Y/N said. 

Inej narrowed her eyes and prompted, “But.” 

“But,” Y/N huffed, “Jesper said they needed someone as bait. And I’m said bait.” 

A look of sympathy flashed across Inej’s face, before she grabbed Y/N’s hands, leading her to her room so they could talk in private. 

Once the girls were settled, Inej said, “You don’t have to go you know. Kaz wouldn’t think anything of it.” But Y/N shook her head. “I have to go. I just got everyone to shut up,” Y/N said. “But Y/N, we both know you got the worst of it at the Menagerie,” Inej said quietly. Y/N sighed recalling all of the horrible memories. 

“Look,” Inej started, “I’m just saying, you don’t have to do this type of thing.” 

“I’ll have to at some point. Might as well be now. Besides I’ve practically been begging Kaz to let me go, and I told him I’d be fine. Do you know how embarrassing it would be if I went to him now and said ‘oh wait I can’t do this cause I’m afraid a guy is going to try and feel me up’?” Y/N mumbled. Inej gave her a funny look but said, “Kaz wouldn’t blame you. He’s not one of the nasty men. I mean he doesn’t have a conscience I swear, but he still has some respect for women.” 

Y/N snorted, “It still makes me look weak.” 

“You aren’t.” 

“I know. It’s just time. I can do this Inej. I’ll be okay.”

Inej sighed and eventually nodded in agreement. “Okay, try and get some sleep. Jesper is a hyper one to work with so you should be fully prepared,” Inej smiled, standing up. “I wouldn’t doubt it,” Y/N laughed. “Goodnight!” Inej called before floating out of her room. 

Y/N laid awake for a few more hours telling herself she was going to be fine. “It’s been over a month and you’ve been doing great,” she muttered to herself in the dark. At last, after a long while the restless girl eventually fell into a deep slumber. 

The following morning, Y/N was immediately met by Jesper. Big Bolliger was lingering in the hall behind him and Y/N assumed this was the other guy on the job. Great, she thought to herself. The guy that absolutely hates me now for almost shooting his manhood off. 

“So, you ready?” Jesper asked with wide eyes. Y/N noticed how his leg seemed to be shaking and one hand rested on his pistol, tapping on the side of it. “Uh, sure,” Y/N said. Jesper’s face split into a grin and he rushed by her. “I’ll fill you in when we get to the spot!” he called over his shoulder. 

Big Bolliger shoved past her, obviously still unhappy over the previous day, following Jesper out. Y/N felt a pair of eyes on her and turned to see Kaz making his way down the steps towards Per Haskell’s office. His impassive expression was back, but his eyes were burning with something else. Anxiousness? Concern? Anger? 

No not anger. He’s always mad at something, Y/N told herself. Catching his eye for a moment, she silently told him she was going to be okay before hurrying after Jesper and Big Bolliger. 

Kaz stopped on the landing in front of Per Haskell’s office, finding Y/N’s eyes. Quickly, he found the girl staring at the entrance where the two boys just went through. He could tell she had doubts about going, but he knew she wouldn’t back out much to his dismay. As if she could sense his presence, Kaz saw her turn around and her golden eyes met his. He sucked in a breath and silently wished she would come up to him and say she wasn’t ready and that she changed her mind. 

Unfortunately, the look in her eyes told him the opposite. He saw her eyes soften at the sight of him, but just as quickly as they found his, they pulled away, and Y/N flitted out the door and into the sunlight. 

Unbeknownst to Kaz, Inej saw the whole exchange and grinned at the thought of Y/N and Kaz. 

Y/N eventually caught up with Jesper, having to walk at a very brisk pace. “Saints! Slow down Jesper,” she exclaimed, finally reaching him. “Keep up golden-eyes. I’m in charge today and I set the pace,” Jesper snickered. Y/N glanced around nervously. She felt too exposed weaving in and out of the hustle and bustle of Ketterdam. 

“What exactly is the plan?” She asked. “Wait no, what exactly is it we’re doing?”

“We need to get this slummy little Ravkan trader to cough up some coins he owes Kaz,” Jesper said, “But he is smart enough not to travel by himself because he knows how Ketterdam is. A real con artist if you ask me. Not a very loyal Ravkan considering he hoards most of the kruge for himself instead of actually giving it to his boss.” 

Y/N nodded, trying to dodge more bodies. It was already hot enough with the sun beating down on them. How in the world does Kaz wear a tie everyday? Y/N thought to herself. 

“So,” Jesper continued, “Your job is to get the guy away from his little friend.” Y/N looked around as her, Jesper, and Big Bolliger made their way to a table in front of a little bakery across the street from some club. Y/N was tense. It felt ten times hotter already, and she was very unnerved at how quiet Big Bolliger had been this entire time. 

“There’s an alleyway, just over there,” Jesper pointed diagonally across the street to the left, a few buildings down from the club. “You need to get him over there where I’ll be covering the backside. Big Bolliger will cover where you enter the alley and we’ll handle it from there. Easy peasy,” Jesper concluded. 

Y/N didn’t say a word thinking about how she would have to lure him away from his friend. Tante Haleen’s voice rang out in her head, “Be a serpent girl. Draw them in with those eyes and then strike. The men love it.” 

“You know,” Jesper’s voice snapped her out of her thoughts, “If you aren’t comfortable with this you don’t have to do it. We can find another way.” Y/N glanced at Big Bolliger and he was eagerly waiting for her response. She would not give him the satisfaction. 

Y/N shook her head, “No, I can do this. I’ll be fine. Easy peasy, like you said.” Jesper gave her a wary look but nodded his head. Big Bolliger, however, had a look on his face that ran shivers up Y/N’s spine. He was betting on her to fail so he could chew her out and get her back for yesterday. Y/N gulped and sunk in her seat watching the crowd roll by and trying not to vomit all over the table. 

After about thirty minutes of waiting, Jesper nudged her arm, “There he is.” He pointed to two fairly pale, slimy looking school-boys. The target was the taller of the two, but almost sickly like. The boy had absolutely no muscle on his body, but had a slight gut popping out from his stained shirt. 

“That’s the con artist?” Y/N asked in complete shock. She stifled a laugh as Jesper rolled his eyes. “Yes he doesn’t look like much, but that guy is pretty good at what he does. His friend on the other hand is just along for the ride,” he said. 

“Jesper, this guy is like our age,” Y/N burst out laughing. “Yes yes I know. But Kaz needed him to run something to another guy. Then the other guy made the mistake of telling him to take money back to Kaz and well you get the idea,” Jesper said. 

“Let’s go,” Big Bolliger snapped, interrupting their conversation and standing up, walking away before the two could say anything. Jesper and Y/N then stood up and he turned to Y/N one last time. “Look it’ll be ok. We’ll be just around the corner and will be on the guy as soon as you get him in the alley,” Jesper smiled at her before disappearing in the crowd. 

Y/N took in a nervous breath before making her way towards the two guys in front of the club. Putting up her best facade, she waltzed up to them, eyes on the taller one. “Win good, boys?” Y/N smirked, batting her eyes. Everything inside of her was screaming to run. 

The two Ravkans eyed her curiously, but the target took the bait. “No not today, sadly,” he said with a thick accent. “Oh that’s too bad,” Y/N pouted, resting a hand on his shoulder. The guy reeked. 

“I’m sure there are other ways to make up for it though,” she whispered, biting her lip. Gag. The man liked where this was heading, and allowed his hand to slip over her back, grabbing her waist and pulling her close. Y/N stiffened as his hand slid dangerously low. 

She pushed aside her fear and said, “Why don’t we go somewhere a little more private? I’m sure your friend won’t mind.” The guy smirked and turned to his friend, speaking something in their native language. She only understood bits of Ravkan, but this was surely something she didn’t want to hear. The two guys shared a disgusting look and high-fived before he said, “All set.” 

“Wonderful,” Y/N muttered as she turned her back to him, pulling him towards the alley. The guy stayed very close behind her. Y/N felt the weight of his hand on her lower back, slipping ever so slightly lower. She suppressed her shutter and kept telling herself, just a few more feet. Memories of slimy men flipped through her mind like a movie, and Y/N felt as if the walls were closing in around her. 

Every step she took, Y/N heard the comments about how such a little girl was so beautiful, but along with that Tante Haleen’s words echoed through her mind as well. Every beating, every client who made her cry, everything terrible. 

But one voice kept her walking, ignoring the man’s hand, ignoring his breath on her neck. I don’t want to see you get hurt like that again. You don’t deserve it. Kaz’s voice was the loudest of them all. She didn’t know why, but she didn’t care. He kept her from drowning, and his voice gave her that sense of hope that she could make it through this. 

Y/N felt a wave of relief rush through her as she could see the alley maybe six feet in front of her now. She turned towards the Ravkan and gave him a mischievous grin. He took the bait yet again, grabbing her waist and pulling her close. His head found the crook of her neck and started placing wet, nasty kisses. Y/N had to physically hold back her puke. 

Just as they were about to stumble into the shadows, a very familiar voice rang out, “Is that my serpent?” Y/N froze. Tante Haleen was staring directly at her with an ice cold glare. “You bitch!” she shrieked. The Ravkan pulled away from her and gave her a confused look. “You know this girl?” he asked the Peacock as she was approaching them. “Oh I know this one all right,” Tante snapped. “She wanted out of my house for the longest time. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s playing you right now! She doesn’t like when men touch her,” she sneered.

The Ravkan glanced around nervously. Y/N couldn’t move or speak. “If you’re going to act like this then I’ll just bring you back to where you belong!” Tante Haleen screeched pushing through the crowd. The Ravkan took one more glance at Y/N before bolting. Before Y/N had known what happened though, Big Bolliger’s body slammed into the Ravkan and dragged him into the alleyway, not before shoving Y/N onto the ground. Tante Haleen reached the girl on the ground and yanked her up by her hair. Memories of the night Y/N took the beating in public resurfaced. 

“I told you I’d take you back in chains,” the woman snarled in Y/N’s face. Tante’s hand ran across her cheek and Y/N could feel the tears burning in her eyes. She slapped her repeatedly and threw the girl back on the ground. You don’t deserve it. 

Y/N’s head cleared as soon as she heard Kaz’s words echo through her mind. They were as clear as day. “No,” Y/N mumbled, finally able to form words. 

“Excuse me?” 

“No,” Y/N said more firmly, meeting the woman’s gaze. “I will not!” 

Instinctively, Y/N kneed the woman in the stomach and sent her crumbling to the ground. She knew how to fight back. “I’m not scared of you anymore,” Y/N hissed, kicking Tante square in the face. The woman was knocked out cold. Y/N shook herself out and ran into the alley.

Big Bolliger had the Ravkan pinned up against the wall as he was struggling to get something from his pockets. “Thank you, thank you,” Jesper said as the guy handed him two pouches. “Alright I think we got it all,” Jesper said after counting. Y/N let out a sigh of relief as Big Bolliger let the man drop. The Ravkan immediately took off in the opposite direction and disappeared around the corner. 

However, Big Bolliger then rounded on her. He came storming at her, shoving her against the wall. She felt his hands close around her throat. Everything was starting to cave in on her again and her mind went back to awful times when men pulled stuff on her like this. “Whoa whoa!” Jesper exclaimed trying to pull him off, but he just shoved him out of the way. “What the hell was that?” Big Bolliger snarled in Y/N’s face. Y/N found herself at a loss for words again, partially from being strangled at the moment.

“You try an act all tough, but I see right through you. And you just proved it! You could’ve ruined the whole job, bitch,” his words cut through her like a knife. “All you’ll ever be is some whore that Brekker decided to pull off the streets for himself.” Ouch. 

“Dude, let her go, she did fine,” Jesper interjected. Big Bolliger glared at Y/N for a moment longer before releasing her. Y/N collapsed, coughing and gasping for air. Jesper knelt down beside her placing a hand on her back, but she flinched away from him. 

Big Bolliger snorted, “I guess I was wrong. Can’t even take a man’s touch. Looks like you can’t even be a whore right.” Y/N felt tears start to fall. Why did Kaz pick her? She thought miserably. 

“That’s enough!” Jesper snarled at Big Bolliger. “Let’s go.”

“Whatever. It’s your funeral when Brekker finds out what happened,” Big Bolliger shoved past Jesper and disappeared back in the crowd. “C’mon,” he said gently, but did not touch the shaking girl. Y/N slowly stood, feeling the throbbing in her neck from his fingers. She still felt like she couldn’t breathe. There were probably marks left too. 

Jesper and Y/N made their way back to the Slat slowly. Big Bolliger was already back by the time the pair came in. Kaz’s jaw locked as soon as he caught sight of Y/N’s face. He was not happy. Inej was by her side in an instant, “What happened?” Y/N just shook her head and made her way over to where Kaz and Big Bolliger were sitting. Jesper laid the bags down in front of Kaz as Big Bolliger said, “We were lucky I got there in time. What were you thinking sending her on a job?” 

He felt pretty confident with Kaz. “I mean, she froze and almost lost the guy cause what?” Big Bolliger faced Y/N again. Kaz noticed how she physically shrunk away from his gaze, her golden eyes wide with terror again. Kaz also saw light bruising around her neck and her face stained with tears and red marks. 

“Cause the woman from the Menagerie came to talk to her,” Big Bolliger answered before Y/N could. If she could even speak. Kaz got the sneaking suspicion that the bruises around her neck were not from the Peacock though. His hard gaze turned back to Big Bolliger. 

“What happened to her neck?” he growled. Big Bolliger’s face went pale, but he didn’t answer. “What happened to her neck?” Kaz repeated, his anger rising. When no one answered, Jesper stepped in, “This lunatic grabbed her and threw her up against the damn wall! We got the job done didn’t we?” He exclaimed. 

Y/N had never seen it before, and she was sure no one else had either. Kaz completely lost it. The table was flipped in front of him and Kaz’s cane collided with Big Bolliger’s face. “What the hell!” He cried in pain. “I stepped in when she froze up! She needed to be put in place.”

Kaz kicked Big Bolliger in the stomach causing him to hunch over in pain. “You know damn well the job got done and was successful. She got the guy over to you. I don’t care if you’re the strongest, the biggest, the whatever, you do not lay your hands on her again if you want to keep them. Suck up your pride and get over what happened yesterday,” Kaz hissed, leaning over the quivering boy, with a fistful of hair in his hand. “And get the fuck out.”  

No one dared utter a word as Kaz lifted himself up from his squatting position. Big Bolliger’s face was swollen and his eyes were now swimming with fear. Y/N had never seen Kaz so angry, and the worst part was that his eyes burned with fury much like Tante Haleen’s did whenever she disobeyed. 

“Don’t you all have other stuff to do?” Kaz snapped. The crowd broke apart as everyone scurried away like mice. Inej clung to Y/N’s arm as Kaz turned to the two girls. “Go, Inej,” he said through gritted teeth, obviously not trying to yell at his Wraith. They stared at each other for a hard moment as if she was challenging him. Eventually, his eyes narrowed and he huffed, “I’m not going to hurt her.” 

Inej still didn’t budge. 

“It’s okay,” Y/N said quietly to her as Kaz glared back. After a moment, Inej dropped her gaze and muttered, “You have a real bad habit of saying everything is okay when it isn’t.” “I know, but this time it is,” Y/N managed a strained smile before removing her arm from Inej’s and moving silently over to Kaz. For the first time in the entire day, Y/N finally felt safe. 

Too many of the wrong hands had been on her and she didn’t want to feel suffocated anymore, and with Kaz, that’s exactly what she could get. He glanced at Y/N before heading back up the steps. 

Soon enough, he and Y/N found themselves back in his room just as they were the previous day. This time Y/N finally broke down as soon as the door was closed. The horrible memories of every beating came back to her, and the stench of the Ravkan filled her nose again. Before she could stop it, she finally spilled the contents in her stomach. 

When it was all out, she felt sufficiently better and stared at the nasty puddle of puke on the floor and realized what she had just done. “I am so sorry,” Y/N looked up at Kaz who seemed to be grimacing a bit, refusing to look at the floor. “I--” Y/N’s voice died in her mouth. 

“No, no, it’s uh fine. I’ll make someone else clean it up. I’m honestly surprised you lasted this long anyways,” Kaz groaned a bit motioning her to move away from the puke. He moved her to the window sill and pushed the window open to let some fresh air in. Y/N sat down as Kaz rested a hand on the frame of the building above his head. 

The fury in his eyes were gone as he studied her tired looking features. There was a prominent bruise forming on her face and a little cut under her eye. His jaw locked again as his eyes wandered down to her neck, where an outline of Big Bolliger’s fingers bruised her neck. 

Y/N squirmed under his gaze as she felt her face heat up. But he still said nothing. He honestly didn’t know what to say. 

Finally, Y/N locked eyes with him, and she saw him take in a sharp breath. It was her eyes, gold as ever. 

“Look, I know what you’re thinking. I’m fine now. Yes I almost lost the guy, but I mean that damn woman,” Y/N started. “I don’t blame you,” Kaz interrupted. “You don’t have to do that,” Y/N hissed. Kaz seemed a bit taken aback at her outburst, but let her continue.

“You don’t need to baby me. I know I screwed up, but you babying me isn’t going to fix anything. We got the job done, I froze. That’s what happens to people like me. I’m broken, Kaz. I still don’t get why you picked me!” Y/N declared, standing up. “I’m broken. It’ll always be like this for me! Maybe I’ll get better but that pain will still be with me. I haven’t seen my family in years, I’ve been beaten, raped, tortured by the hands of disgusting men. I am completely and utterly--”

“Your eyes,” Kaz said softly, interrupting. 

“Wh-what?” Y/N asked, caught off guard at his response. 

“It was your eyes. That’s why I picked you. There was something about you that night. It,” he paused for a moment, taking a hesitant step closer to her. Y/N could feel her heart pounding out of her chest. 

“It reminded me of myself when I was younger,” Kaz admitted. They were chest to chest right now, and he was looking down at her with dark eyes. He closed his eyes for a moment and said, “It reminded me of when my brother died and who the person I was then. I--I used his body as a float. His dead body. All the way back to the mainland,” Kaz took a shaky breath, but continued, “But you. You were me. You were the little boy fighting to survive under the worst conditions. You were that person who didn’t deserve what the world threw at you. The person who didn’t have anyone to protect him. The person who had absolutely no one.” 

“Kaz…” Y/N whispered. He opened his eyes and saw tears running down her face again. Kaz brought a hand up, pausing. Taking a deep breath, he pulled his glove off revealing his slender hands. Y/N had always seen them from far away whenever it was just them, but never this close. She noticed the little scars that decorated his fingers and palm. Just like mine she thought. 

Kaz brought his hand back up to her face and she noticed he was slightly trembling. Y/N wanted to move because she knew he was uncomfortable. She didn’t want to put him in this position. But another part of her wanted to see what he’d do next. Her skin began to itch where his fingers hovered. 

Kaz wanted to do this. He knew what he did and that sick feeling began rising in his stomach without his gloves. Images of Jordie’s corpse flashed through his mind, but he stared into those liquid gold eyes. They were filled with warmth, not the cold water that nearly killed him. His mind screamed, begged him to put his safety net back on, but he wanted to feel her. And he wanted her to feel him. Not the mask of cool and rough material that could have easily reminded her of the rough hands in her past. 

Y/N didn’t dare move. She just let Kaz do what he needed. The next thing she knew, his fingertips were tracing the little scar next to her eye and down her face. For a moment, he allowed her cheek to rest in the palm of his hand while his thumb wiped away a stray tear. His hand was warm on her face and surprisingly soft. She had seen what those hands could do to a person, but  with her, they were gentle. He wasn’t the Bastard of the Barrel right now. He was Kaz Brekker. 

Kaz Brekker. The boy, Y/N had fallen hopelessly and completely in love with. 

And she was the girl with the golden eyes who he had, and would never admit to anyone, fallen head over heels for. 

He was pleased that she didn’t flinch under his touch, but as easily as those eyes melted away that drowning feeling, they still weren’t enough. He let his hand trail down to the bruises on her neck before letting it fall to his side. 

Y/N felt cold air rush around her and she longed for that feeling of warmth. But, she didn’t want to push it. 

“It’ll take time,” Kaz said quietly. She knew what he meant. And he knew she would. “Me too,” she whispered, a small smile on her face. 

Kaz’s mouth quirked up a bit as he saw the brightness in her eyes return. 

And for that moment, they were content in each other’s presence, neither asking for anything more than what they could give in that exact moment. 

_______________________________________________

I hope you all enjoyed this! That last scene with them I was listening to ‘A Thousand Years’ by Christina Perry when I was writing to it, and that LITERALLY made it ten times better so I recommend going back and reading it while listening to that song lol. 

[crazyclownthanos]

White Clover

Page 1: Passing the baton

Words: 3823

The Clover Kingdom

The title of 30th wizard king, now belonging to an orphan who grew up in the forsaken realm, who had no magic and better yet was a devil host

Asta achieved his long life dream and he couldn’t be more happier

Standing on the clover castle balcony with his wizard king crown on his head and his signature smile

Right beside him was his fiancé at the time Noelle Silva who was given the role of one of the many advisers

Standing on his left side Secre Swallowtail or known as Nero in simpler times,another adviser to the wizard king

Along with Finral Vaude, another advisor to the wizard king

Together with Noelle was Mimosa Vermilion known to be clovers best healing mage

The whole entire kingdom was there to watch

From the noble realm

From the common realm

From the forsaken realm

All the citizens were there to watch

Sister Lilly, Orsi, Nash, Recca, Auru and Hollo were standing on one of the castle towers. smiles all around, cheering and some tears from father Orsi.

House Vermillion, House Kira and House Silva stood proudly watching the ceremony. King Augustus was actually bothered to watch the ceremony but all the swine did was sit and squirm in his throne. Some people don’t ever change.

All the captains stood proudly with their squads and robes on

The magic knights all yelling praises and singing for joy

Drouot within the crowd crying happy tears proud to see that boy grow up and soar over the years

The diamond kingdom mages showed up too

Mars

Ladros

Ragus

Broccos

Yagos

Galleo

Mohawq

Human Fana

All showed up to show their support to Asta

The seabed temple folks also saw

Gifso

Gio

Kahono jumping up and down screaming to see Noelle on screen.

Kiato

And the rest of the citizens

The Witches Forrest were also able to watch the ceremony

The elves were invited too. Patri, Elf Fana, Vetto and Rhya watched from the top of one of the buildings filled with joy

The newly crown spade king was just arriving landing right beside Asta with his crown and not to forget Belle still sitting on his shoulder

They didn’t say anything to each other but only smiled. Yuno and Asta shared one last bump fist

The journey ends. A new era starts......

A story of a new devil

This story starts off in a library, dusty books in sight, lightly lit candles illuminating the space, a chalkboard in sight and in front of the chalkboard was a wooden table and chairs

Two boys, one standing in front of the chalkboard and the second one sitting on one of the chairs

The first boy apperance was thin and fair, he was wearing a black turtle neck hemmed to his hips, along side white pants and an over sized wool cardigan. Cherry colored triple bangs and eyes of blooming sakuras seen from a distance

The second boy had two light grey braids on the left side of his head tied up in in a ponytail with bangs on the ride side sprouting out. Heterochromia irises of blue on the right and purple on the left. Wearing long puffy sleeves faded blue shirt connected to circle pins with the house Silva emblem splatted on, having a bit of a hole appears above it on both sleeves and on both side of hips, a lilac slash tired around his waist with the knot on the right side, navy blue pants along side pockets with the same pin at the ankle and the hole above.

Please meet

Ace Silva! The youngest of the Ideale Branch

And

Reagan Silva! The second son of the main Silva branch

“When making a paper crane you need to pull the wings, but not too hard!”

“Ta-da!”

Placing the paper crane on the table Ace gleed with Joy considering it was his 1000th time making a paper crane.

Meanwhile Reagan on the other hand was still struggling doing the top fold, his cheeks were turning red out of embarrassment

“You’ll get the hang of it!” Ace remarked hands on his hips smiling ear to ear like the Cheshire Cat. Hearing someone slam the door open frightened Ace causing him to fall on the ground and duck for cover.

Three people walked inside two girls look around the same height, and one male taller than the two girls

“Yo-ho! Regan, Ace!”

Please meet the next generation of Silvas

Be mentally & physically prepared

Seriously.

There beasts.

Haskell Silva.

Nozel Silva’s first son and the heir of the royal Silva family. A hyperactive 20 year old and a 1st class senior magic knight of the Silver Eagles squad. Currently rocking ankle length blonde hair to the ankles tied up in low length ponytail with bangs out. Wearing a sleeveless tight shirt of yellows and golds showing the design of a golden eagle in the middle and golden rays of the sun symboling the eagle, white pants and calf length white boots with golden edges.

Next was Nozel’s first daughter, claimed to be one of the finest ladies in the kingdom. A cunning lady who went by the name Nereida Silva. A rookie member of the Black Bull who got into the squad by persuasion by her aunt, Noelle. She had the facial features and silver hair, a normal Silva appearance (though unlike her yellow eyes that textured her irises) tied up at the buttom and pinned up by a clip with a somewhat curly fringe the swooped up a bit. Wearing something similar to Haskell but instead of the golden edged boots it’s dipped in a silver color altogether. Her tight singlet that caressed her skin in a purple color.

The last one of the bunch

Josslyn Silva.

The eldest of the Ideale branch.

Told to be one of the most beautiful women in the kingdom, blessed with mint green eyes like her grandfather, pink luscious lips, quite noticeable and long cherry blossom hair that was normally tied up in a high ponytail along with her bangs that covered her forehead and hair spilling out at the front. Complementary to Nereida and Haskell she of course rocked the silver edged boots, white pants and a pink tight top.

“A-ah! What bring you guys here? I thought you guys were meant to do your intense trial or something else...” Ace murmuring his last couple of words, peering his pink eyes at the three

“I’ll comment and say Haskell was a walking fire hazard in today’s sparring session.” Nereida shared a smile making it look like nothing happened at all.

“Now we’re punished to read all books on magic tool history.” Josslyn cocked her head towards her younger brother.

A vein popped out of Nereida still fuming with rage knowing she got punished for something she didn’t do though appearances such appearances had no effect on her smile.!

“Oh I’m sorry Regan and I will take our leave” Ace stumbled on his words picking up the pieces of the paper he walked to the door expecting Regan following right behind him

“Rega- Aaah!” Ace let out a girly scream seeing Regans face turn purple from being suffocated from the squeeze of Haskell’s biceps

“HASKELL YOUR GOING TO KILL HIM~!” Ace mustered all the strength he could to let Reagan have atleast one breath of air pass his lips. Unfortunately it had no affect on Haskell, the guy was just too buff not like Asta buff just the unequaled type of buff.

Noticing the tears swell up in Ace’s eyes he took note of the state Reagan was in and joined the panic feast

“AAAAHHH WHAT DID I DO?!” Letting the poor six year old rest on his back, Haskell had no other option but to perform cpr on him.

Performing at least 60 chest compressions per 30 seconds, Haskell and Ace haven’t even checked for a pulse better yet done mouth to mouth.

The sound of a sharp inhale was a wave of relief crashing over Haskell and Ace.

“AAH! MY SWEET BROTHER BLOODHOOD YOURE BREATHING AGAIN~!!” Haskell shaking Reagan by the shoulders, waterfalls spilling down his cheeks. Concurrently Josslyn and Nereida stood there witnessing the turn of events not even changing their facial expressions

Squirming around the young boy Reagan sat there dumbfounded still picking up the pieces on what just turned.

Exhaling sharply, Josslyn stepped one foot forward resulting in both Ace and Reagan sitting on their assess kicked out of the room.

Somewhere outside Clover castle, busy by a chain of stalls selling fresh produce and in an alleyway a red fox growling its teeth at some crows over a crushed rotten apple. Successfully the red fox scared the crows away able to eat the apple without disturbance.

A gust of wind came along not disturbing the red fox but the newspaper blown right in front of the apple. Looking at the newspaper the front cover was in view displaying the new generation of Silva’s all standing, hands behind their backs, legs straight plus posture and not to forget their serious expressions. Wrinkling the red foxes expression somehow it didn’t happen to wrinkle on the last boy with the red hair on the left instead it only tilted it’s head. As the red fox shifted its head to the visible sign of the House Silva emblem.

Back at the Silva palace Ace and Reagan walked down the corridor going pass all the Silva’s portraits that came before them, their luxurious silver hair was never out of sight, they had forgotten they were the first generation of Silva’s that all possess their own individual hair color, the pressure was definitely on for them. At the rate their generation is going the pressure might be able to kill them knowing that both Ace and Reagan have not manifested a magic attribute yet, always the word “yet” has to taunt Ace, other children his age are already performing and practicing magic.

“Grandmother......” Reagan said in awe

Hearing those words Ace tapped back into reality seeing that both him and Reagan approached the portrait of Acier Silva looking all beautiful, Ace could only bite his lip in shame, knowing that this was the woman he was named after, he wasn’t reaching the expectations of royals, he wasn’t out there with his cousins using magic neither doing his duty as the bridge between royals and peasants making a difference.

Why wasn’t he never good enough.....?!

Ace’s hands started to shake, noticing this Reagan took Ace’s closest hand to him and started to pet it attempting to give it warmth. Taking his hand out of Reagan’s grasp, Ace held them together forward and bowed deeply altogether with a sad face for a few minutes. Standing back up he turned to see the stern expression of what Reagan was making, squeezing his fists right near his face, quivering his lip and his eyes look like they were about to pop out of his head. Ace almost felt if he we’re to poke his cheek he would explode. Lifting up his hands in surrender, not knowing what he could do next. “R-Reagan d-do you need to go p-p-potty?” Reagan took back his composure, he stopped squeezing his fists, took them to hip level and made hand gestures to Ace ordering him to get onto his height level. Somehow Ace cleary understood what Reagan was communicating and did what he got told. Now kneeling right in front of Nozel’s second son, Ace was not prepared on what was going to happen.

Reagan slapped him.

Before Ace could recover from the first slap a mountain of slaps came flooding in.

Screaming Bloody Mary for a good 5 minutes. Reagan finally finished. Sitting on beaten up Ace’s stomach, huffing and huffing before speaking out to him one last time. “Now have you learnt your lesson?”

“A lesson?! How is this a lesson! You just continuely slapped me without say?!” That’s what Ace really wanted to say. Instead he just breathed out, saluted him and replied back. “You got it captain Reagan.”

Reagan nodded his head in approval. Getting off his stomach. Reagan starred at the glass door near by echoing the songs of spring. “Hurry along Ace! It’s time we go outside.” Pointing to the glass door leading to House Silva’s garden. Ace lifted up his head (still red slap marks kissing his face) scrunching his nose in confusion.

“But why?” Ace questioned. Replying to the question, Reagan had already walked over to the glass door and tried to grab onto the door handle.

“Oh.”

He had to open to door for Reagan. Forgetting that Reagan was shorter than the average six year old male and the door handles around the palace tend to be far higher.

While Reagan was running around the garden on a quest to find as many bugs as he could. Ace spent his time laying on the grass, face down and pretending he wasn’t listening to a kid on crack. Feeling the sudden pain of an object hitting his head, Ace lifted his head off the grass to search on what could of strike him. His eyes couldn’t pick up anything unusual, maybe it was just the pain of the slaps finally coming to fry his brain. Scanning one more time Ace finally saw what it was. An acorn? Sweeping the acorn off the ground Ace held the acorn in both his hands, lifting up his upper body to take a proper look, the acorn was just another ordinary acorn but what felt odd about it that squirrels don’t even take habit around the capital, usually their spotted in places like the woods.

The curiousity caused Ace to take a closer look around the garden to see if maybe Reagan had shifted from scouting bugs to acorns instead. Wasn’t the case at all. Instead of a kid on crack Ace had spotted a baby red fox using it’s amber eyes as a somewhat attempt of brainwashing him. This wasn’t the first time Ace had crossed paths with a red fox, you can spot them sometimes, never in packs but just a single red fox always startling Ace somehow.

A few blinks was traded among the two, soon enough Ace passed on a small smile and wave. The red fox maybe had mistaken the small gesture as a way to tell the fox come fourth. One paw in front of the other Ace did wonder where did the red fox came from. Maybe it was the adult foxes baby? But shouldn’t it stay close to its mother? Finally in arms length, Ace sat up cross legged and let out an open hand for the baby fox to get a closer sniff on his scent, it all went well until Reagan decided to run pass still continuing to scream. The scream had startled the baby fox causing it to hide behind Ace. Evoking Ace to crackle a chuckle he simply laid a hand on the foxes head, while he continued to chuckle with his other hand over his mouth. This brought back a memory of the times whenever he would get scared and hold onto his mother’s leg or hide behind her dress as hypocritical it sounds. Maybe this was the feeling Nebra got whenever Ace would do this

The baby red fox came back around with pleading sounds of joy that only worked Ace over more. Starting to come closer the baby fox began to lay its head on his lap for comfort. Not wanting to wake up the baby fox Ace sat there only focusing his eyes on the sleeping fox.

Regrettably that soothing peace didn’t last long. Reagan came up to Ace holding bugs that he dug up, together with dirt in between his fingers. This time the fox ran out of sight as soon as the oath approached. Ace pulled a face of disgust stirring his head away from the sight.

“Something the matter Ace?”

“Uh. Not really actually.” Ace held the barf in his cheeks.

“You look sick...wanna go see Mimosa?” Dropping his hands. Having the tone of a concerned mother.

Ace cocked his head the other way not wanting to see the sight of his hands again.

“No thank you! Really appreciate it but I think I’ll be fine.” Just when Reagan was going to say something else the scent of gasoline hit them like an arrow.

“Is that the smell of gaso-“ Ace didn’t even finished his scentence. The damage had already been done. The three tater tots had successfully blown up one of their families libraries and some areas outside the library. They can already imagine the headache in front of them.

“Oh come on you old meanie! Is hitting us THAT necessary?!!” Haskell yelped just after gotten a smack a head from one of Nozel’s Mercury stick thingos.

Haskell, Josslyn, Nereida plus Ace and Reagan was currently getting interrogated none other then the head of the family. Nozel Silva, for damaging their “beloved” library.

“Indubitably it is. I could punish you 5 far worse but by all means I’ll keep you alive for now.”

“Oooo you’re so intimidating Mr frostbite~ What are you going to do to that library? DIG IT A GRAVE?” Haskell was getting sharp with his words, he wasn’t the compulsive type though if you were to trigger that all you could do was pray and hope for the best.

That triggered Nozel. The air became thin and the room began to shake in an attempt to scare these children.

Unsuccessfully his plan didn’t work out at all. These children weren’t fazed in the slightest bit. Haskell stood there crossing his arms and tapping his foot, Nereida only stood there with no facial expression expressed and Josslyn could only stare at the ugly paperweight on Nozel’s desk. Meanwhile in Ace and Reagan case they couldn’t even detect mana at all, not to forget this rapid cold feeling wasn’t the first time they had felt it.

As soon as the room felt more lighter Haskell had a bucket of insults ready to missile at his father, however Nozel was able to summon a piece of mercury taped to his mouth to keep him shut.

“At this age of your lives. You three should know how to maintain your magic and keep it away from harms way.” Walking past all Silva’s like they were at military camp.

Nereida lifted up her hand to say something.

“I competely agree with you father, but if you will I need to comment that it was all Josslyn’s and Haskell’s fault. You see Haskell kept on mocking Josslyn and you get the idea that Josslyn is quite short tempted. To flourish her anger she activated one of steamed based spells to fill the area of gasoline so on and so forth.” Ace sometimes wondered how Nereida can stay efficient.

Josslyn rolled her eyes. Haskell was trying to shout profanities with the mercury still taped to his mouth. “Thank you Nereida. I do appreciate your truth. Momentarily I assure its all time you five gets some shut eye for tomorrow’s event.”

All of them except for Haskell saluted and 4 of them made their path outdoors in the meantime Reagan rushed to his fathers side. Ace whispered to Nereida covering his mouth “wait. I still don’t understand why Reagan and I were dragged into this.”

“Better not to question it.” Nereida replied keeping her hands behind her back. Ace slopped forward looking forward to the comfort of his pillow.

The baby red fox ran through weeds in the moonlight. Stopping at a rock placing both paws onto the rock. Then the impossible happened. A illuminating red glitter had taken shape over the fox. The red fox shifted into a baby red fox to an adult red fox. Gawking at the offical royal magic grimoire tower in front of it.

Tick-Tock

Tick-Tock

Tick-Tock

CLING

It was already mightnight. The grandfather clock had sure done its job waking up Ace. Reaching out towards his bed side table for his glass of water but this time as he picked up the glass and lifted it towards his lips no water dropped down.

“Dammit.” He had ran out of water. He had two options. Go downstairs to refill the glass or two swallow his own saliva. He went for the first option. Getting out of his comfortable position, Ace walked down stairs wearing a white shirt and grey sweatpants. Walking down silently, wary not to wake up his parents or sister. Refilling the glass cup he had caught something phenomenal.

The semita blue butterfly. A rare butterfly that glows, which can only be founded during darking hours. He wasn’t letting this chance slip through his fingers. Taking a big sip of the water he started to walk towards the butterfly. Unlike other butterflies that would fly away if they spot danger, many have stated that the semita blue butterfly dosen’t fear danger.

Following the butterfly through the double doors outside the sleeping quarters of the Ideale branch. Pass the portrait of his grandmother. Flying through the main kitchen. Cursory every corner. Making it to the outdoors where Ace never stopped chasing the butterfly. Even when approaching the royal grimoire tower he didn’t take his eyes off it. The butterfly was his goal.

But a slight problem occurred. Reaching the insides of the royal grimoire tower the butterfly started to fly up out of Ace’s reach. To describe the interior of the grimoire tower it was not like any other grimoire tower scattered all over the kingdom. There was windows near the top displaying crystal shaped windows, circling that part. Most fascinating there was floating book shelves carrying books.

Ace had no facnation checking the place out. All he wanted was to get one touch from the semita blue butterfly.

Reaching out his right hand trying to grasp the blue butterfly, his eyes went wider and wider.

He lost contact for a minute then somehow a miracle transpired.

A blue arrow shot out of his palm.

And not like an arrow you find in a bow and arrow. The symbol arrow.

The blue arrow came streaming out of his palm, the length continued to grow as it went up. The blue arrow punched one of the floating book shelves resulting in some books losing balance and to fall off the shelve, flying towards the ground. One of them happened to come flying down to Ace. Covering his head with his hands pleading that the book will somehow move. Taking one more good look at the book as it’s about to hit him. The book stopped. Floating in the air. Wait did he saw a thumb by the spine?!

Taking the book out of his sight Ace flexed his head towards the book direction uncovering a man twice his height, pale skin, black split hair on an angle and pericing red eyes.

“Nice to finally meet you. Ace”



[fineastin]

( nick robinson , twenty , cismale , he/him ) FIN EASTIN , don’t think that you have gotten off easy because i haven’t told the school that REDACTED . sweetie , no one can hide from me - not even a BROTHER of GAMMA. oh no, your secret is most certainly not safe with me. you know , i asked around about you & most people said that you reminded them of DANIEL DESARIO with FALLING BY HARRY STYLES playing in the background , that’s very interesting - i wonder how accurate they are.

sharpie scribbles on bar napkins, fallen branches on a dysfunctional family tree, thrifted jean jackets and converse worn years past their worth, a room decorated with emptied bottles, loose-leaf shoved to the bottom of a bag, heavy eyes that just can’t close.

yellow! i am dew, she/her, and i’ll be writing this messy of a human. before i jump into him, a little about me. i am 27 (omg, still unreal to write) and i’m a server-bartender. just got a lovely cat named monroe who i love. i’ve been rping for nearing a decade now, with brief hiatuses in there. excited to get started with all of you!

name: fin elijah eastin pronouns: he/him age: twenty birthday: march 1st zodiac sign: pisces hometown: cooperstown, new york major: journalism fraternity: gamma phi gamma clubs: school paper

“so you're numbin' the pain, stuck in your ways”

fin grew up in the suburbs of new york. it was kind of laughable how picturesque it was: white picket fence, businessman dad, homemaker mother who substitute taught and made mean chocolate chip cookies. there was even a dog, a mini schnauzer named mickey — an ode to his father’s favorite baseball player.

baseball. fin thinks that may have been his first moment of disappointment. not the homerun hitter his dad imagined cheering on from the stands. he wasn’t even bad, he was just fine. second disappointment had to have been his grades. a report card consisting of mostly c’s. studying never going anywhere aside headaches.

ALCOHOL  / ADDICTION TW: there were definitely other disappointments in between but the big one started the first time fin got caught sneaking in through his bedroom window, drunk from a classmate’s party. the yelling was supposed to have been a lecture, a lesson, a reason not to do it again but fuck if fin didn’t want to wash away the words and the disappointment with a bottle. jack daniels did a good job of drowning out his father. liquor bottles were carefully selected and drained from the cupboard — fin knowing well enough to leave his mother’s grey goose alone — and refilled with water. money was stolen out of wallets. he needed to spike his soda at pizza night just to get through. that train of thought continued on and on until the water bottle in his math class smelled of straight smirnoff.

the summer before his junior year, his parents shipped him off to some summer camp. rehab in the woods. doctors with canoes. didn’t realize it then but that was fin’s last summer with his parents and he saw dr. haskell more than he saw marc and kathleen. 

no parents in the picture, fin went to stay with his grandfather, george, in florida. a single, retiree, george spent most of his days donning a hawaiian shirt, walking the pier, and betting horses. he was almost like a roommate and less of a guardian. was it bad for fin to say that it was a breath of fresh air?

the last conversation fin had gotten to have with his dad, he’d promised to go to college. was meadowbank what marc eastin had in mind? likely not. but it had dorms, tuition payments, and after four years a degree. so promise kept... or on target to.

now he’s a sophomore ( behind one year academically ) and majoring in journalism. it’d nearly been business and then almost communications, but his advisor had suggested journalism. fin had always liked writing, though it was always more of a form of personal therapy. or maybe better put, a way to drain the thoughts from his head. pen to paper. screw the digital aspect of it. just wasn’t the same. and, hey, if it worked out maybe he could wind up doing some of those weird interviews he’s seen on youtube. imagine getting to ask keanu if he’s immortal to his face?

“and I know you've been hurting, think you deserve it”

currently has three tattoos. the first was a shrimp on his forearm, a piece from his favorite childhood book on his calf, and a drunken decision on his ribs.

against popular assumption, fin isn’t all that bad at math. now, let’s be clear, he was near going to pass calculus or score 100s on even his algebra tests without a cheat sheet but basics are pretty down pat. perhaps the whole buying and selling ounces and grams wasn’t for nothing... aside from a high.

“journals” on whatever loose piece of paper or paper-adjacent item is nearby. napkins, book pages, bibles pamphlets handed out by old ladies on campus: all wind up with chicken scratch sharpie brain dumps. 

his room is a mess but at the very least his bed is nearly always made. it’s a small way he’s hoped to combat the bouts of insomnia. clean bed, maybe he wouldn’t have such a hard time fucking falling asleep. maybe the past and his thoughts and all the reasons he’s a screw up wouldn’t keep him up at night.

because he struggles to sleep, fin can often be found taking walks at odd hours of the night. and then asleep on a bench near the science building. which usually means an empty seat in his writing class. that participation grade is hurting.

enjoys breakfast more than any human anyone’s ever known.

his wardrobe is primarily thrifted and or *cough cough* stolen. he’s a big fan of shirts with strange slogans or proclaiming they’re the best grandpa. but worn jean jackets have become his main staple.

skateboards as a means to get around campus. capable of a few tricks under the right mind but fin’s always more the type to vibe down a slow and steady hill. that fleetwood mac, ocean spray guy essentially lived his dreams.

writes for the school paper, but tried to worm himself out of the basic sort of stories. he more tries to write stories about hidden gems on campus, interviews with quirky professors, following up on urban legends.

kinda anti-baseball.

will pet any dog he sees. fin is a fan of celebrating anyone’s birthday aside from his own. he usually prefers to gloss over it completely. he’s not worth the celebration.

when was the last time he checked his academic email? unknown.

okay been working on this over at least three episodes of freaks and geeks and i think this is all i got for now. if you have any questions, ask away! apologies for not listing connections ideas right now but i am very open to ideas and plotting!

[shifty-as-a-swinging-trapeze]

Six of Crows Theatre AU

Kaz is the stage manager. Always has a notebook/binder and a criticism ready. Per Haskell is technically the director but everyone gets their notes from Kaz. He’s very demanding and a lot of theatre kids hate him, actors and crew alike, but you have to admit his shows are excellent. When he was a kid he used to go to musical summer camp with jordie. He loved singing and dancing and everything about musical theatre (just imagine a tiny eight year old Kaz flailing around trying to dance and singing in a voice thats high and clear as a bell, like a kid in a church choir or something. Just. Imagine). He doesn’t perform anymore but he still secretly loves theatre and devotes so much time to it but no one is allowed to mention it on pain of death. Once in a blue moon he’ll sing or hum quietly to himself when alone but Inej is the only one who has caught him doing it (she loved it and thought it was beautiful and adorable)

Inej is the choreographer/dance captain. She always choreographs the shows but only performs sometimes. She’s got a nice voice but prefers to stay in the background. She has a mishmash of dance/gymnastics training that often manifests in the form of acro and she’s constantly frustrated that none of the actors know anything about it; all she wants is someone who can lift her in the non-traditional way or do a fun front walkover combo. She knows ballet but it’s not her favorite and would much prefer modern if she had to choose. She hates tap and absolutely refuses to learn or incorporate it into her choreo. Kaz has had to hire someone specifically to do the tap numbers because of this and he gives her grief for it all the time but she Will Not change her mind. When she does perform she often becomes the most featured dancer because of all the crazy bendy flippy stuff she can do. She has been in newsies multiple times. She played spot conlon once. It was badass.

Nina cannot carry a tune in a bucket, but she’s an amazing actor. She absolutely kills it in straight plays, especially in highly emotional scenes. Has been known to bring audiences to tears before. She hasn’t been doing this since she was little, unlike many others, but first discovered it freshman year of high school. She absolutely despises Shakespeare even though she’s incredible at it. Juliet was her first major role and she hated every second of it. The language, the acting, it was all just so pretentious and after the curtain went down on a weeping crowd for the final time she vowed to never do it again. When not acting, she likes to help out in costumes, especially for her friends’ musicals. She’s also often on snack duty during tech week, making sure everyone is getting enough food and staying hydrated when they’re practicing throughout the day and into the night. Always brings in the best snacks but will yell at you if you eat in costume. Do not test her, she will throw hands.

Matthias is on set crew. He likes helping build the set because then he’s free to watch Nina everyone perform later on in production. Will sit in the back rows during dress rehearsals and flaunt the fact that he has nothing to do to the rest of the crows. If it’s a musical Nina will sometimes join him. He had no interest in theatre until Nina dragged him to a production at the end of sophomore year and he low key fell in love with the passion and skill everyone had. He shyly asked if he could join crew next time and set build welcomed him with open arms. He’s got a talent for envisioning awesome sets but has zero ability to put it on paper so Wylan helps him by sketching out his plans. Matthias describes his vision and Wylan does his best to put numbers and measurements to the pieces, and between the two of them they create some amazing stuff (Matthias is like the architect and Wylan is the engineer lol). No one has ever heard Matthias sing before. Nina tried to get him to audition once but he point blank refused. Everyone secretly thinks he has an amazing voice but no one can get him to confirm it.

Jesper is a born performer. He often gets the male lead but isn’t arrogant about it. When he was in elementary school his school would put on “musicals” that the entire grade would participate in and he put his entire five-year-old body into those performances. He was often borrowed by local high schools to play the kids in their productions and this continued into middle school, even when he started doing actual theatre as well. He’s got a great voice and an even better stage presence, but this boy cannot dance to save his life. He’s all leg. Inej has tried so hard but he trips trying to do the most basic step-ball-change. He doesn’t really like straight plays very much, they’re too boring for him most of the time. He wants the flair that musical theatre brings, the pizazz. (This is also partially the fault of his previous directors for choosing the most boringly traditional straight plays to put on, giving Jesper a permanently skewed perception of them).

Wylan plays flute in pit orchestra (I low key wrote this whole thing for him but shhh). His voice is fucking beautiful but he’s painfully shy and self-conscious about it. He does pit in every production but one year one of the main actors drops out and it’s too late to audition for a replacement. Wylan has everyone’s lines and blocking memorized because he’s just Like That and he often helps out Kaz earlier in production before pit is needed (by help I mean he ends up calling out lines whenever anyone needs them and Kaz is too busy squinting at the stage and the actors (scheming face) to bother) Kaz orders Wylan to fill in for the missing guy and though Wylan protests, one Cannot go against the word of Kaz Brekker. He does it and once he comes out of his shell everyone is just like. Damn. This boy can sing. Maybe ends up playing opposite Jesper?? His dad hates that he does theatre because he wants Wylan to be like an accountant or some shit but Wylan is basically like ‘fuck you dad’ and goes on a journey of self discovery where he gains confidence in his abilities and astounds everyone on opening night except for his friends who are so proud of him.